Gun Control Voices in Congress All but Silent After Charleston Shooting

WASHINGTON — After the fatal shootings at a landmark black church in Charleston, S.C., Senator Joe Manchin III, who sponsored gun safety legislation that failed in Congress two years ago, released a statement lamenting “the nine souls who were lost.”

One word the West Virginia Democrat did not use was guns.

Ditto for the Twitter message of Representative Mike Thompson, Democrat of California and the head of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the liberal minority leader, visibly shaken, said nothing about guns on Thursday morning. Nor did Senator Patrick J. Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican who was the co-author of Mr. Manchin’s legislation.

Three years after the massacre of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., galvanized some lawmakers to seek modest gun control legislation, the prospects now are even more remote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/20/us/gun-control-voices-in-congress-all-but-silent-after-charleston-shooting.html?_r=0