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Four children died in Alaska after a 15-year-old boy killed three of his siblings, then killed himself, according to Alaska State Troopers (AST). The horrific incident happened on July 26, 2022. 

The police received reports of numerous shots fired in a residential building in the Skyridge Drive Subdivision in Fairbanks, Alaska. 

All four children died of gunshot wounds. 

“The parents of the children were not home when the incident occurred,” the Alaska Bureau of Investigation wrote in an AST daily dispatch. “Three other children in the residence were uninjured.”

According to an investigation, the deaths were a result of a triple-murder suicide committed by the 15-year-old, who used a "family gun".

The murder victims were aged 5, 8, and 17, according to Anchorage. The three other children were found alive and uninjured - they were all under the age of 7. One sibling was not home when the shooting occurred. 

The bodies of the deceased have been sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office, and the Office of Children's Services has been informed of the incident, according to the police. 

The investigation is continuing, but there are not many details. 

The investigation is looking into the motive behind the murder. 

Tim DeSpain, the AST spokesperson, revealed that the gun used was a “family gun but beyond that, it’s all still part of the ongoing investigation.”

DeSpain declined to reveal whether the shooter had a prior criminal record, saying that information about the boy's past would be part of the investigation.

The names of the deceased are not being released at this time.

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The US continues to struggle with violent crime and mass shootings due to its loose gun laws and supremacist grounds for such violence. 

Firearm sales soared to record levels between 2020 and 2021, matching up to the increase in victims and shootings the country is grappling with today. There are over 45,000 deaths from gun violence each year in the United States. 

See more: 2021: Gun Violence Surges in the US

Last month, US President Joe Biden pleaded for lawmakers to pass stricter gun control laws, including a ban on assault weapons, in a bid to clamp down on unprecedented levels of mass shootings across the United States that have been turning American communities into "killing fields".

Biden called on members of Congress to pass tougher laws just a day after a mass shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, over a week after a school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and almost three weeks after a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York City. 

In July, New York lawmakers adopted a broad revamp of the state's handgun licensing requirements on Friday, hoping to keep certain restrictions on weapons in place after the US Supreme Court ruled that American citizens have the fundamental right to carry arms in public.