Al Jazeera reports Obama issued the statement as local and federal investigators struggled yesterday to determine a motive of the shooting at Umpqua Community College. He said late on Thursday that the nation's response to mass shootings has become "routine" - from the reporting by the media, to his own comments, to the opposition to gun control laws aimed at deterring the violence.

Yesterday, law enforcement sources confirmed reports identifying the suspect as 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer, who lived with his mother in a town near the college campus, where the shooting took place.

According to survivors' accounts, the gunman stormed into a classroom at the college in the former timber town, shot a professor at point blank range, then ordered cowering students to stand up and state their religion before he shot them one by one.

There have been 142 school shootings in the United States since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.

Al Jazeera