Washington Has No Answers to Charleston Shooting

From the president to those campaigning to be the next one, there was little hope that the government could do anything to help stop the next shooting.

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By Angela Greiling Keane and Margaret Newkirk and Ben Brody

June 19, 2015 at 10:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Hours after the news of a massacre at a South Carolina church, President Barack Obama was on a plane to the West Coast for a series of fundraisers after calling for more gun control but acknowledging it wouldn't happen. The Democratic front runner for his job called for public officials to act but didn't recommend how. Republican presidential candidates offered condolences. One, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, accused the president of trying to "score cheap political points" by raising the gun issue.

Though some politicians cancelled public schedules in the face of the tragedy and the South Carolina legislature put off debating controversial bills in honor of the colleague who died in the fusillade, the violence left the nation's leaders as polarized as ever.