In a weekend in which 47 people were shot, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that he blamed illegal handguns for the rise in violence and a shooting that killed three people and wounded two police officers a few blocks from the route of the annual West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn.

He called out federal officials saying they lack the courage to take on this gun problem.

Bullet fragments hit one police officer in the left arm and chest Monday night. He was hospitalized, but was expected to survive. Another officer was grazed by a bullet.

Two shooters were killed along with a bystander, 56-year-old Denise Gay, who was shot while sitting on a stoop with her daughter nearby just two doors down from the exchange of gunfire