Multiple people shot in northern Illinois as US fails to curb gun violence

Multiple people have been shot in a community in northern Illinois, authorities in the midwestern US state said.

Ambulances and two medical helicopters went to the Lost Lake community near Dixon on Wednesday, where there also was a massive police presence, according to a post on the Winnebago Boone & Ogle County Fire/Ems Incidents Facebook page.

A spokesperson at Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital in Dixon said three people were taken to the hospital's emergency department, two of whom were treated and released. The spokesperson did not release the condition of the third person.

Earlier, officials called it a "mass casualty incident".

A person answering the phone at the Ogle County Sheriff's Department would not comment when reached by The Associated Press.

The department's website said a news conference would be held at 3:30 pm.

Aerial video by local media on Wednesday afternoon showed law enforcement and personal cars parked on the side of unpaved roads throughout the neighbourhood and officials occasionally gathering in small groups but little ongoing activity.

Yellow police tape blocked at least one driveway, and an Ogle County sheriff's mobile command centre was parked at the end of the drive.

Lost Lake's property owner's association describes the area as a "country style community" with about 700 owners in an unincorporated area close to the cities of Dixon, Franklin Grove and Oregon, about 160 kilometres west of Chicago.

Heavily armed society

According to US President Joe Biden, more children are killed in America by guns than cancer and car accidents combined.

Biden, who spoke at a gun violence conference on Tuesday, underlined that he signed into law the most wide-ranging gun violence prevention bill in June 2022, one month after a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

"It’s the most significant gun legislation in nearly 30 years," he said, adding it was designed to reduce gun violence and save lives.

America remains the most heavily armed society in the world.

The country has by far the most gun deaths per capita of any large high-income country, analysis from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows.