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It's fitting, I suppose, that we're waiting to see how this hostage situation plays out on the morning Wacky Wayne LaPierre is testifying before Congress. I'm guessing this bizarre tragedy is another custody dispute, but we'll see.

And this is the thing: It's not only the mass shootings that are the gun problem, or drug gangs in the city. It's also that average citizen, pushed to a sudden edge, feeling like his life is spiralling out of control, sees a gun as the way to get that control back. I'll show that S.O.B.!

It's the constant drip drip drip of one life lost at a time -- which is why it was easier to ignore before a classroom of children were taken out with an assault weapon. Yes, Mr. LaPierre, I can't wait to hear what you have to say!

(Reuters) - A standoff continued early on Wednesday with a gunman who boarded an Alabama school bus and fatally shot the driver before fleeing with a young child and holing up in an underground bunker, authorities said.

Dale County Coroner Woodrow Hilboldt confirmed the bus driver had been killed in the shooting Tuesday afternoon as children were being ferried home from school.

The gunman fled to a bunker on his property after the shooting, Alabama media reported. Hilboldt said it was his understanding that the child, variously identified by local media as 5 or 6 years old, was barricaded with the gunman in "some kind of a tornado bunker."

Local law enforcement gave scant details about the incident, but confirmed that one person had been killed and a child was present at the scene in Midland City.

Hilboldt said both the gunman and bus driver were in their 60s.

Law enforcement officials from multiple agencies were convened near the bunker on Wednesday as the standoff with the shooter continued overnight, said Dothan Police Sergeant Rachel David.

The shooting comes as national debate rages over gun violence, especially in schools, after a gunman shot dead 20 students and six staff members at a Connecticut elementary school last month.

Alabama media reported that the incident on Tuesday happened at approximately 4 p.m. local time when the suspect demanded the driver let a student off the bus.