WASHINGTON (TIP): Ten people were killed when a gunman opened fire at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College on Thursday, Oct 02, forcing the nation to face yet another mass shooting. The shooter is dead, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin told reporters while withholding the name of the shooter. “I will not name the shooter,” Hanlin said. “I will not give him the credit he probably sought.” However, multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation identified the gunman as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer. Investigators have interviewed members of his family and friends, they said.

A law enforcement official said the shooter had body armor with him and was heavily armed, with a large amount of ammunition –enough for a prolonged gunfight.

The shooter was targeting Christians specifically, according to the father of a wounded student.

Anastasia Boylan, 18, told her father and brother before undergoing spinal surgery that the gunman entered her classroom firing, shooting the point blank.

Others were hit, and everyone in the classroom dropped to the ground, she told her family.

As he reloaded, the shooter ordered the students to stand up if they were Christians.

“And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,'” Boylan’s father, Stacy, told CNN. “And then he shot and killed them.”

President Obama pushed for a change in gun laws when he spoke to reporters about the shooting Thursday.

“Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine, the conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this,” he said.

The President continued: “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America – next week, or a couple months from now.”