An Alabama drifter opened fire inside a crowded cinema, killing two women in Lafayette, Louisiana, police said.
Gunfire erupted during a showing of the film 'Trainwreck', before the 59-year-old suspect, identified as John Houser, then took his own life as police officers rushed to the scene, Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft told a press conference.
Authorities said seven people were wounded, three of them critically.
One person underwent surgery and "was not doing well," Chief Craft said.
"This is a normal movie theatre in a normal part of a normal town. This is anywhere, USA," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who went to Lafayette to meet with law enforcement and victims, said.
"This just shows these senseless acts of violence can literally happen anywhere."
The two victims were identified as Mayci Breaux, 21, and 33-year-old Jillian Johnson.
Police did not immediately offer a motive.
"The shooter is deceased. We may never know," Chief Craft said, adding that the man had criminal history that he described as "pretty old."
He told the press conference that the gunman tried to sneak out of the cinema with the crowd after the shooting. He was forced back inside by the quick arrival of police, before shooting himself.
"It is apparent that he was intent on shooting and escaping," he said, noting that Houser's car, a blue Lincoln Continental, was parked outside the cinema near an exit.
Houser was "kind of a drifter" who had moved to Lafayette recently from Phenix City, Alabama, and had no recent criminal record, Chief Craft said.
Police found disguises, including wigs and glasses in his motel room, he added.
Chief Craft said records indicated that Houser, who is white, had no arrests in the last 10-15 years, but previously had an arson and a misdemeanor arrest, possibly involving the sale of alcohol to a minor.
"Other than that we haven't really found anything else on him, he seems to be estranged from his family," he said.
Houser was denied a pistol permit in 2006, the Russell County Sheriff's office in Alabama told The Advocate newspaper.
A police search of his motel room found signs of alcohol consumption, but no drugs.
Witnesses said the gunman abruptly stood up in the darknes sof the Grand 16 Theater about 20 minutes into the movie and began shooting.
"He wasn't saying anything. I didn't hear anybody screaming either," Katie Domingue, who was watching the film with her fiance, told the local Advertiser newspaper.
The bullets sent people scrambling from the cinema, situated on a main thoroughfare in Lafayette, a city of about 120,000 people roughly 90km southwest of Baton Rouge, police said.
President Barack Obama, who arrived in Kenya today, received a briefing about the shooting during a refuelling stop on board Air Force One in Germany, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
"The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the White House, including the President and First Lady, are with the community of Lafayette, Louisiana, especially the families of those who were killed," a statement said.
'Trainwreck's' actress and writer, comedian Amy Schumer commented on the shooting via her twitter account.
My heart is broken and all my thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Louisiana.
— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) July 24, 2015
Two of the wounded victims were teachers, Governor Jindal said, one of whom told him that she survived the attack because her friend rolled over her as bullets rang out. That teacher then managed to pull a fire alarm in the cinema, he said.
The shooting came three years after a gunman opened fire at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of the Batman film, 'The Dark Knight Rises', killing 12 people and wounding 70 others.
James Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student at the University of Colorado, was convicted last week on 165 counts of murder, attempted murder and explosives in the 20 July 2012 shooting.
Jurors in that case were trying to determine if Holmes should face the death penalty or life in prison.
The United States has witnessed several mass shootings in the last two months.
A gunman is accused of a racially motivated shooting at a black church in South Carolina that killed nine church members in June.
More recently, a gunman attacked military offices in Tennessee last week, killing five US servicemen.
Mr Jindal, who last month announced his candidacy for president, said he had ordered National Guard members at offices and other facilities to be armed in the wake of the Tennessee attack.
Obama says lack of US gun control his greatest frustration
President Obama has said a "distressing" lack of progress on gun control legislation has been the greatest source of frustration during his time in office.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Obama said the issue he felt "most frustrated and most stymied" by was legislators' inability to push through limitations on access to arms, despite repeated massacres during his tenure.
Under the US Constitution, every US citizen is entitled "to keep and bear arms".
Mr Obama said his country was "the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws".
He contrasted the numbers killed in terrorist attacks since the attacks on 11 September 2001 to gun violence.
He said: "If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100.
"If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands," he added.
"And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing.
"But it is not something that I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months [of his presidency]."
