Less than one day after a white gunman killed nine people at a prayer meeting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, Republican presidential candidates touted their support for the right to bear arms before a mass gathering of conservatives.

Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington DC on Thursday, an annual event that draws a largely evangelical audience, both US senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul declared their unwavering support for defending second amendment rights in separate speeches.

“If I am president of the United States, we will appoint justices and we will have an attorney general who will protect our second amendment rights,” Rubio said to thunderous applause.

“Everybody’s for the second amendment. All 55 candidates running for president are for the second amendment, on our side,” Paul said later in his own speech.

Although the rousing defenses of gun ownership were not made in reference to the Charleston church massacre – and are routinely part of both candidates’ stump speeches when addressing social conservatives – the comments coincided with what political watchers said was at least the 14th time Barack Obama has been forced to address gun violence in America.

Speaking at the White House, Obama said the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church could “shift how we think about the issue of gun violence”.

Barack Obama says similar shootings have happened ‘too many times.’ Link to video

At the conference across town, Paul did directly address the Charleston killings just a few minutes into his remarks, as did Texas senator Ted Cruz, another Republican presidential candidate who spoke at the event.

“What kind of a person goes in a church and shoots nine people? There’s a sickness in our country. There’s something terribly wrong,” Paul said. “But it isn’t going to be fixed by the government. It’s people straying away. It’s people not understanding where salvation comes from.”

Cruz opened his speech by holding a moment of silence for the victims of what he called a “horrific tragedy”.

“Today the body of Christ is in mourning. A sick and deranged person came and prayed with a historically black congregation for an hour and then murdered nine innocent souls,” Cruz said of the incident at the historically black church. “Christians across our nation, across our world, believers across our world, are lifting up the congregants at Emanuel AME.”

Rubio did not mention the shooting at all during his remarks, although he tweeted earlier on Thursday that he was “saddened” by the event.

Saddened by the news from Charleston. The victims and their families are in my prayers today. — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 18, 2015

By contrast, a visibly frustrated Obama reacted to the shooting by pointing out that he has had “to make statements like this too many times”.

“We don’t have all the facts but we do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said. “At some point we will have to deal with the fact that this kind of mass violence doesn’t happen in other countries and it is in our power to do something about it.”

Republican lawmakers in Washington remain overwhelmingly opposed to gun control and blocked an expansion of background checks in the US Senate shortly after the 2012 mass shooting by 20-year-old Adam Lanza at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children and six educators dead.

All of the roughly dozen Republican contenders for president have consistently flaunted their support for the second amendment while on the campaign trail, often warning that the Obama administration is out to grab guns from ordinary citizens.

Democratic presidential candidates struck a more proactive tone than either their Republican rivals or the exasperated-sounding Obama, with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders calling loudly for a renewed debate on both guns and race.

“As we mourn and as our hearts break a little more, we will not forsake those who have been victimised by gun violence, this time we have to find answers together,” said Clinton, during a scheduled campaign stop in Las Vegas. “Let’s unite in partnership, not just to talk but to act.”



“We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and division,” she added.



Sanders was blunter still, calling the attack “not just a tragedy” but “an act of terror”.



“This hateful killing is a horrific reminder that, while we have made important progress in civil rights for all of our people, we are far from eradicating racism,” he added.



Despite facing criticism for holding a campaign event on pensions within earshot of a Charleston prayer vigil, Sanders’ statement was the first from a leading politician to describe the attack as an act of terrorism.

Clinton was also more outspoken than Obama, saying gun control would have to happen “at some point”.

“We will stand with you as we seek answers and take action,” she told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Las Vegas.

“How many innocent people in our country from little children, church members to movie theater attendees – how many people do we need to see cut down before we act?” the former secretary of state asked.