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The Washington Post on Wednesday published a full-page editorial listing the victims’ names and ages in 37 mass shootings in the U.S. since 1999, including the seven killed in a weekend shooting in western Texas, and then asked, “if that would be enough to move Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from his insistent inertia on gun safety?”
The Post’s editorial board demanded McConnell allow a Senate vote on new gun-control measures and conceded that a single law can’t stop the violence, but said, “there are reasonable, obvious measures that would help,” such as banning assault weapons.
McConnell said Tuesday in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would not move forward on a gun reform bill without the direct support of President Donald Trump. His comments in the interview prompted reactions from both politicians and anti-gun advocates alike.
“Citizens are dying every day because Mitch McConnell does not have the political courage to do what every American wants to have done,” Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign, a non-profit organization preventing gun violence told ABC News.
On the Democratic campaign trail, former Vice President Joe Biden tweeted, “If those in power fail to take action on gun safety reform we must vote them out. Period.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., slammed McConnell in an interview with PBS NewsHour, saying he will need to explain to Americans why he blocked a gun control bill that would strengthen background checks from a Senate vote.
A spokesman for McConnell declined to comment.
ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan contributed to this report.
