broken.
“I’m for the Second Amendment, but there has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA to come to grips and make sense — have sensible laws so that crazy people can’t get guns,” he said. “It can’t be that hard, and yet politicians from the local level to the state level to the national level, they side step the issue. They kick the can down the road. This can’t happen anymore.”
The constitution’s Second Amendment — enshrining the right to bear arms — is defended tooth and nail by the National Rifle Association, the main US gun rights lobbying group, which has been successful in blunting past drives to restrict weapons sales.
US lawmakers have been hesitant to enact tougher limitations on access to guns, in part because they are loath to anger voters for whom the Second Amendment cannot be abridged in any way.
President Barack Obama made a concerted effort to push gun control legislation through Congress in the wake of the Newtown school shooting, but the draft went nowhere.
“It breaks my heart every time you read or hear about these kinds of incidents,” Obama told an ABC affiliate in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
“What we know is that the number of people who die from gun-related incidents around this country dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said efforts should focus on bolstering mental health treatment, rather than on gun restrictions.
“They should be talking about mental health because there are so many things to be done,” Trump told CNN.
On Thursday, crestfallen staff at WDBJ mourned their colleagues, observing a moment of silence on-air.
“We will, over time, heal from this,” said a grief-stricken morning anchor, Kimberly McBroom, holding hands with two colleagues on the set.
The moment of silence at the station in Roanoke, about 240 miles southwest of Washington, came at 6:45 am — the exact time that Parker and Ward were shot and killed at close range. Photos of the slain journalists were displayed on-air during the tribute to them.