Calling for more than "yet another moment of silence," Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), urged her colleagues Sunday to consider gun control measures in the aftermath of the Charleston, South Carolina, shooting.
Speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Edwards praised politicians and lawmakers for responding in "exactly the right way" to the tragedy, but advocated for them to take action as well.
"If the only thing that can come out of this is that next week when Congress reconvenes that we engage in yet another moment of silence, I think that that would be really unfortunate," she said. "The crazy guy is always going to be there. The person who's gone in the wrong direction is always going to be there. What can we do to keep the gun out of the hand of that person?"
Edwards, a longtime proponent of stricter gun control who is running to fill the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) next year, also said the shooting demonstrated that racial tension remains a problem in America.
"It did take me back. I remember as a little girl when the 16th Street Baptist Church
was bombed in Birmingham and I remember being afraid of going to church," Edwards said, recalling the 1963 attack that killed four young African-American girls and injured more than a dozen others.
"I think for so many of us the pain and the history of violence that's happened in our churches, it was a reminder again that we still have a lot of work to do in this country," she said. "All of us have work to do on race and I don't think it's inappropriate for us to talk about what we need to do to get and keep guns out of the hands of people who would commit such a tragedy."
Before You Go
