Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton voiced her support for stricter gun control laws in the wake of last week’s shooting in South Carolina which left nine dead.
Speaking at the 83rd annual US Conference of Mayors Saturday, the former Secretary of State said she supported President Obama’s calls to further infringe on the Second Amendment if it means it will help the victims of “gun violence.”
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“How [is it] that we as a nation still allow guns to fall into the hands of people whose hearts are filled with hate?” the former First Lady asked. “You can’t watch massacre after massacre and not come to the conclusion that, as President Obama said, we must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction.”
“It makes no sense that bipartisan legislation to require universal background checks would fail in Congress despite overwhelming public support,” she said. (On Friday, it emerged that suspected Charleston shooter Dylann Storm Roof actually passed a background check to purchase a firearm.)
“It makes no sense that we couldn’t come together to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers or people suffering from mental illness, even people on the terror watch list,” she continued.
“That doesn’t make sense and it is a rebuke to this nation we love and care about,” the CFR member said, raising her voice loudly.
“The president is right. The politics on this issue have been poisoned, but we can’t give up. The stakes are too high. The costs are too dear, and I am not and will not be afraid to keep fighting for common sense reforms and along with you achieve those on behalf of all who have been lost because of this senseless gun violence in our country.”
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, President Obama and Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. both rushed to issue statements demonizing the Second Amendment over the shooter’s actions.
Meanwhile, black Americans took to Twitter and rallied around firearms, the Second Amendment and the God-given right to self defense, declaring a call to arms in rejection of the white supremacist ideology.
Candidate Clinton first made her anti-gun stance clear in April, asserting, “We cannot let a minority of people, and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people, hold a view point that terrorizes the majority of people.”
H/T: The Hill
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