This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Rick Perry calls Charleston church shooting an 'accident' Read more

Hillary Clinton on Saturday called for “commonsense” gun control legislation and decried “institutional racism”, days after a shooting in a historic South Carolina church killed nine of its black members.

Clinton, who was speaking at the US Conference of Mayors in San Francisco after a west coast fundraising swing, said Congress should pass legislation keeping guns from criminals and mentally ill people while “respecting responsible gun owners”.

She said: “The politics on this issue have been poisoned but we can’t give up.”

In 2013, in the aftermath of a shooting in which 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, Congress rejected legislation that would have expanded background checks on firearm sales.

Clinton also addressed what she called a “long struggle with race”, saying the US “can’t hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America”.