A lone gunman opened fire inside a crowded movie theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Thursday evening, killing two people and injuring seven others before taking his own life, police said. The gunfire erupted during a 7 pm CDT (0000 GMT) showing of the film Trainwreck and took place almost three years to the day after a massacre at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, that killed 12 people. Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft said two people died in the hail of bullets before the 58-year-old gunman killed himself with a handgun as officers responded to the scene shortly after 7:30 pm. Bystanders watch over the scene at a movie theatre where a man opened fire on film goers in Lafayette, Louisiana

The shooting came three years after a gunman opened fire at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, during a screening of the Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and wounding 70 others.

Former graduate student James Holmes was convicted last week on 165 counts of murder, attempted murder and explosives in the July 20, 2012, rampage.

Jurors in that case were trying to determine if Holmes should face the death penalty or life in prison during a penalty phase of that case.

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.

Jindal said he had ordered National Guard members at offices and other facilities to be armed in the wake of the Tennessee attack.

In a BBC interview excerpt that aired on Thursday before the shooting, US President Barack Obama said his biggest frustration was the failure to pass "common-sense gun safety laws" in the United States.

Officials stand by the scene outside the movie theatre