A gunman opened fire in a crowded US movie theater and shot two people dead before killing himself Thursday, shortly after President Barack Obama expressed frustration with weak gun controls.

A gunman opened fire in a crowded US movie theater and shot two people dead before killing himself Thursday, shortly after President Barack Obama expressed frustration with weak gun controls.

More than 100 people were in the theater when the gunman began shooting randomly with a handgun about 30 minutes into a showing of "Trainwreck" at the Grand 16 theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, police said.

Nine people were injured, some critically.

"We don't believe there's anybody else involved," Louisiana State Police Colonel Michael Edmonson told reporters.

President Barack Obama said earlier Thursday that a "distressing" lack of progress on gun control legislation had been the greatest source of frustration during his time in office.

"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 said in an interview with the BBC taped before the shooting.

"And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing."

This latest mass US shooting comes as a jury deliberates the death penalty for the gunman in a 2012 theater massacre in Colorado that left 12 dead and 70 injured.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal rushed to Lafayette late Thursday, where he held a press conference not far from the shooting scene.

"Whenever we hear about these senseless acts of violence it makes us both furious and sad at the same time," Jindal told reporters.

"There's no good reason why this type of evil should intrude on the lives of people who are just out for entertainment."

The Louisiana shooting comes a week after Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, opened fire on two military centers in Chattanooga and killed four US Marines and a Navy sailor before dying in a shootout without police.

Police said they have identified Thursday's shooter as a 58-year-old white male, but did not release his name.

Authorities said the shooting victims ranged in age from the late teens to the 60s, and said police are still in the process of notifying their relatives.