Philadelphia (AFP) – Five people were killed and two dozen others wounded in a pair of weekend mass shootings in the United States, the latest in a string of deadly gun attacks that have left lawmakers scrambling to tackle the crisis. The shootings — late Saturday in Philadelphia and early Sunday in Chattanooga, Tennessee — further jolted a country facing a gun violence epidemic that has already claimed several thousand American lives this year and shows no signs of abating. They come as polarized US senators find themselves under pressure to craft a measure that codifies at least basic, pre…