On anniversary of Mother Emanuel shootings, Democrats urge tougher gun control
South Carolina Reps. Jim Clyburn and Joe Cunningham, joined by gun control activists, called on the U.S. Senate Tuesday to close a legal loophole that allows individuals to purchase firearms without completing a background check.
The technicality, know as the “Charleston loophole,” was exploited by the white supremacist Dylann Roof in 2015 to purchase the gun he used to kill nine African Americans in Charleston. Under current law, gun sellers are permitted to sell firearms to a buyer after three days regardless of if the FBI has completed a background check.
The call from South Carolina’s two congressional Democrats comes on the eve of the five year anniversary of the mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church, and more than a year after the House passed a bill that would extend the background check period to 10 days, among other changes.
“The fact of the matter is all of our prayers are falling on deaf ears,” Clyburn said. “What we’ve got to do now is create a climate in this country to make (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell susceptible to walking out of his graveyard, that he likes to call the Senate, and allowing this legislation, passed by the House, to gain new life in the Senate.”
Cunningham echoed this sentiment, adding that “it’s more important than ever for the Senate to pass this legislation and get it signed into law.”
Last summer, after mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, McConnell said he was willing to consider expanding background checks for firearm purchases.
“What we can’t do is fail to pass something,” the Republican leader told a Kentucky radio station last August.
In September, McConnell said that he would not hold a vote on legislation that President Donald Trump would not sign. His office confirmed Tuesday that the senator’s stance has not changed.
Rev. Sharon Risher, a gun control advocate who lost her mother, two cousins and a close friend in the shooting at Mother Emanuel Church, joined the lawmakers in pushing for more extensive background checks.
“Growing up, [we] always had to think about being black before we thought about anything else,” Risher said on the call Tuesday, adding that “racism is caked into the very bones of [Charleston].
Risher said that racism, which she said has followed her and her family their entire lives, caught up to her mother when Roof opened fire in 2015.
“It’s the time to address these problems by protesting, by voting and by addressing loopholes in our federal gun laws like the one that killed my mother and my cousins five years ago,” Risher said.
Clyburn and Cunningham are slated to host a town hall tomorrow, the fifth anniversary of the massacre, to discuss gun violence, police brutality and systemic racism.