Read: The Man Who Killed Two Journalists on Live TV This Morning Is Now Dead
Hours after two TV journalists were shot and killed in Virginia by a disgruntled colleague during a broadcast Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton addressed the incident at an Iowa press conference and reiterated her support of gun control.
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“First of all, I was so just stricken to think that these two young people… would be murdered on live television,” she said. “And I will extend my condolences and sympathies to their families and to their coworkers and pray for the woman who last I checked was still in critical condition. But I will also reiterate: We have got to do something about gun violence in America. And I will take it on.”
Clinton went on to say that some politicians “turn away” from trying to pass gun control legislation due to it being a “very political, difficult issue in America.” She also added this on Twitter:
Other candidates, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-declared socialist who is Clinton’s main competition for the Democratic Party nomination, stuck to issuing apolitical statements expressing sorrow and shock.
Clinton is unique among 2016 hopefuls for voicing opposition to the politically powerful gun lobby, which reflects her long-held views. In 1999, as First Lady, she lent her support to a campaign to defeat a pro-gun measure in Missouri; since the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting she has been critical of gun violence in America on her campaign—a message that seems increasingly relevant as more and more mass shootings make the news.
“I want to reiterate how important it is we not let another terrible instance go by without trying to do something more to prevent this incredible killing that is stalking our country” said in Iowa. “I hope that in addition to expressing sympathy for those directly affected, that this is maybe—for the media, for the public, for elected officials, for every American—what it hopefully will finally take for us to act.”
