Three people, including a child, were killed in a shooting inside a Publix supermarket chain store in southeastern U.S. state Florida on Thursday, local media reported.

Iran PressAmerica: A gunman fatally shot a toddler and his grandmother before killing himself inside the store in Palm Beach County, the authorities said.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said the shooter is among those dead, which include a man, a woman and a child.

The store's parking lot was blocked off with crime scene tape and multiple patrol cars from the sheriff's office following the shooting, local media outlet WPEC reported.

A nearby middle school is on a temporary lockdown as a result of the shooting, according to the WPEC report. 

Thousands are killed or injured each year in shootings across the United States.

According to official reports, there are approximately 270 to 300 million firearms in the United States; this means that there is almost one rifle per person in this country.

Free arms shipments in the United States on a daily basis lead to shooting-related violence across the country, many of which are deadly, but the arms lobby in the United States is so powerful that Congress has so far refused to take any action to curb arms shipments.

Although the United States accounts for about five percent of the world's population, it accounts for nearly 31 percent of those who commit armed genocide. 219

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