Charleston church shooting: Obama calls for gun control in wake of tragedy

A frustrated Barack Obama appeared almost to run out of words to describe his reaction to the racially charged killings in Charleston, revealing that he personally knew the pastor of the church and calling again for gun control reforms.

“To say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel,” said the usually loquacious president in a brief, six-minute White House statement.

Though less visibly emotional than he had been after the Newtown school shootings in Connecticut, a numbed Obama also sought to differentiate the latest, racially charged, attack as an example of a “particular threat to our democracy”.

“I have had to make statements like this too many times,” he said on Thursday, flanked by a sombre-looking vice-president Joe Biden.

“We don’t have all the facts but we do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” added Obama.

“At some point we will have to deal with the fact that this kind of mass violence doesn’t happen in other countries and it is in our power to do something about it.”

The president said: “Any death of this sort is a tragedy … Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.”

Though saying he could not comment too much on the ongoing criminal inquiry, the president did not shy away from the political ramifications of the attack.

“The fact that this took place in a black church obviously also raises questions about a dark part of our history. This is not the first time that black churches have been attacked. And we know that hatred across races and faiths pose a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals.”

“The good news is I am confident that the outpouring of unity and strength and fellowship and love across Charleston today, from all races, from all faiths, from all places of worship indicates the degree to which those old vestiges of hatred can be overcome.”

The president also quoted Martin Luther King’s response to the 1963 bombing of a church in Alabama in which the civil rights leader said: “We must be concerned not just with who murdered them, but the way of life, the philosophy that produced the murderers.”

Obama is estimated to have made 14 such statements in response to mass shootings during his six years as president but failed in his attempt to pass gun control legislation through Congress after Newtown and has also been criticised by some for failing to make a strong enough response to a spate of recent black police shootings.

Later vice-president Biden and his wife Jill put out a joint statement, saying “the senseless actions of a coward have once again cut short so many lives with so much promise”.

“Our hearts ache with sorrow with the entire Emanuel AME Church family as they seek solace and comfort in the shadow of a gunman’s act of pure evil and hatred,” the statement read.

The Bidens said they last saw Clementa Pinckney, the pastor and state senator who was one of those killed in the attack, less than a year ago at a prayer breakfast in Columbia. “He was a good man, a man of faith, a man of service who carried forward Mother Emaunel’s legacy as a sacred place promoting freedom, equality, and justice for all. We pray for him and his sister as we do for the seven other innocent souls who entered that storied church for their weekly Bible study seeking nothing more than humble guidance for the full lives ahead of them.”

The statement also called for gun control. “We have no doubt the coward who committed this heinous act will be brought to justice. But as a nation we must confront the ravages of gun violence and the stain of hatred that continues to be visited on our streets, in our schools, in our houses of worship, and in our communities.”