White House press secretary Josh Earnest reacted to reports of a surge in shootings in Chicago, Baltimore and New York City by calling for Congress to pass more gun control.

More than 50 people were shot in Chicago, some two dozen people were shot in Baltimore and more than twenty people were shot in New York City over the three-day Memorial Day weekend.

“Obviously there’s some common sense things we could do – certainly passage of some gun safety laws in Congress that could keep guns out of the hands of criminals would be one thing that we could do to try to limit the violence,” he said.

Earnest added that there was more the government could do more to help poverty stricken areas in urban communities and support local governments to improve the lives of their citizens.

“There’s no one simple answer to try to address this,” Earnest said. “But this is a challenge that the president is willing to confront.”