--- title: Hillary Clinton Reacts To Charleston Murders, Calls For Action on Guns description: The Democratic candidate makes her first public comments since the attack canonical: https://time.com/3927143/charleston-church-shooting-hillary-clinton/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-18T20:13:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:47:59.215Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hillary Clinton Reacts To Charleston Murders, Calls For Action on Guns og:description: The Democratic candidate makes her first public comments since the attack og:url: https://time.com/3927143/charleston-church-shooting-hillary-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ca728f6d8bbe893/6988553d428a9e974dccdca2/hillary-clinton5.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4230 og:image:height: 2379 og:image:alt: Hillary Rodham Clinton og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton Reacts To Charleston Murders, Calls For Action on Guns twitter:description: The Democratic candidate makes her first public comments since the attack twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ca728f6d8bbe893/6988553d428a9e974dccdca2/hillary-clinton5.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hillary Clinton Calls for Action on Guns After Charleston Shooting > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f28b2ae1-d4ed-44a4-8e11-edf5025e151b&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Second Amendment: The Origins of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms [Watch (HLS stream): Second Amendment: The Origins of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qZX90LbJ.m3u8) (3:22)  _Published 2011-06-30. Why did the framers of the U.S. constitution demand the right of the people to keep and bear arms?_  by [Philip Eliott / Las Vegas](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Eliott / Las Vegas Senior Correspondent Jun 18, 2015 8:13 PM UTC  Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a campaign stop in North Charleston, S.C. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a campaign stop in North Charleston, S.C. David Goldman—AP  by [Philip Eliott / Las Vegas](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Eliott / Las Vegas Senior Correspondent Jun 18, 2015 8:13 PM UTC Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged the nation Thursday to take new actions to curb gun violence in her first reactions to the shooting inside a historically black Charleston, S.C., church that left nine dead. “How many people do we need to see cut down before we act?” she asked, during a summit of elected and appointed Latino politicians meeting in Las Vegas. She began by saying that her thoughts and prayers were with the victims and their families in the shooting, before turning to a broader discussion of police. “So as we mourn and as our hearts break a little more, and as we send this message of solidarity that we will not forsake those who have been victimized by gun violence, this time we have to find answers together,” Clinton said. Police said they had in custody suspect Dylann Storm Roof, a 21-year-old man who spent almost an hour inside the church Wednesday night before opening fire. Officials were not ascribing motives for Roof, who is white, and his killings inside one of Charleston’s most prominent black churches. “Cut down at prayer. Murdered in a house of God. It just broke my heart. That of course is the last place we should see violence. But we shouldn’t see it anywhere,” Clinton said. “In the days ahead, we will again ask what led to this terrible tragedy and where we as a nation need to go. In order to make sense of it, we have to be honest. We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and division.” Clinton visited Charleston on Wednesday before the killings. “I left feeling not only great about Charleston but also great about America,” Clinton said of the South Carolina city. When she landed in Las Vegas hours later, she learned of the killings. “The shock and pain of this crime of hate strikes deep,” she said. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] A well regulated militia. A well regulated militia. Being necessary to the security of a free state. The right of the people, to keep and bare arms. Shall not be infringed. Shall not be infringed ,. When I read the Bill of Rights, that's what I see, people who have empowered themselves through defeating a super power, with a ragtag militia. It's amazing! It's an absolutely amazing story. It was about the states being able to raise army's to protect themselves, in part, against the federal government. They were really worried about the federal government having a standing army, an over weaning force. And so the states could call up their militia any time they needed to to restrain the federal government. That was the best security of liberty. When the people who held power got to be too tyrannical, you could gather together into a militia. Take up arms and, and repel a tyranny. [ MUSIC ] A well regulated militia. Being necessary to the security. necessary to the security of a free state. The Second Amendment is, is basically saying we are helpless against this power, unless we have something that allows us to fight it, and that is the ability to keep arms. The very idea of a militia today is, is somewhat strange to us, but that's the way American armies were organized in, in, in the 18th Century in, in each of the separate colonies. [ SOUND ] [ CROSSTALK ] [ MUSIC ] After the Civil War, Americans basically refought the Second Amendment. They don't believe in state militias anymore. Local governments, state governments, waged war, not against a tyranny but against a duly elected government. And whose bullets, basically, were flying? The bullets of state militias. So does that mean that they just rejected the Second amendment completely? No, they recast it, they re- imagined it. The re- conceptualized the second amendment, not as a states' rights idea but as an individual rights idea. [ SOUND ] The right of the people. The right of the people to keep and bear arms. Keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The one thing the Bill of Rights did not talk about, of course, was a right to carry AK- 47's. Weapons are very different today than they were at the founding. And so one question is, does the founding vision, does the reconstruction vision, still makes sense today? The, the right to bear arms was considered to be, one of those, vital, fundamental liberties that americans, had inherited, from their english warfares. but, the world in which 18th century Americans were living was a very different world from ours today. 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