One person was killed and three others suffered injuries on Saturday after a man riding a scooter opened fire several times in Queens, New York, in an incident the police said was "random".

The man was seen riding an illegal scooter without a license plate, and he went on opening fire at five different locations in Queens and Brooklyn, the New York Police Department said. The weapon was found to be a 9mm pistol with an extended magazine. 

The man, a 25-year-old whose identity is yet to be revealed, shot at four people, all of whom were men. The spree went on for around 30 minutes, with the victims ranging from as young as 21 to as old as 87.

One 21-year-old man was shot once in the shoulder. He has been transported to the hospital and treated for his wounds.

Another victim was an 87-year-old man, who was shot in the back in Queens, with footage showing the suspect approaching the victim from behind on a scooter and opening fire once. The crime took place 17 minutes after the initial incident, and the victim died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

Moreover, officers learned that the suspect opened fire once more but no one was hit, though the shooting that followed saw one 44-year-old man shot in the cheek. It is reported that he has been hospitalized but is in critical condition.

Seconds later, the suspect opened fire for the fifth time, shooting a 63-year-old man in the shoulder. He was hospitalized and is in stable condition. 

Police officers were able to find and arrest the suspect by disseminating an image of him to all nearby NYPD officers and asking them to be on the lookout for the shooter, Acting Commissioner Edward Caban said.

No serial number was found on the gun, and investigations are underway into whether the firearm was defaced or might have been a ghost gun.

To add to the list of crimes committed by the assailant, extended magazines are against the law in the state. 

Lengthy debate

The debate on banning guns in the US was given a lot of impetus in May 2022, when a string of mass shootings that left dozens dead culminated in Congress discussing a ban on assault rifles.

The US House of Representatives passed in July 2022 a bill that stipulates banning assault weapons, marking a first in decades in light of a mass shooting epidemic in the country.

The anti-gun legislation was approved by 217 House members and opposed by 213 in the body controlled by a Democratic party majority.

The United States is deeply divided about reforming gun laws despite the aforementioned erratic episode of gun violence. The bill passed the House floor with the support of two Republicans who joined efforts with their Democratic counterparts and backed the measure.

The bill passing marked the first ban on assault rifles since 1994 when Congress passed a 10-year ban on weapons and certain high-capacity magazines. Lawmakers, however, let the ban expire in 2004, sending the sales of arms nationwide skyrocketing.

The bill bans the sale, import, manufacture, or transfer of certain semi-automatic rifles, which have long been used in the United States in mass shootings, especially over mid-2022, such as in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Illinois.

Gunmakers in the United States have seen a tremendous hike in earnings from their sales of AR-15-style rifles, a US House Oversight Committee probe revealed last year while lawmakers and the public call for holding the industry accountable for crimes committed using their products.