Watch Robert F. Kennedy discuss gun control 47 years ago in Roseburg, Oregon
In May of 1968, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy called for stricter gun control measures during a campaign stop in Roseburg, Oregon — the same town where a gunman killed nine people at Umpqua Community College last Thursday.
CBS News shared a clip Tuesday from the May 25, 1968, edition of CBS Evening News, with anchor Walter Cronkite saying Kennedy was answering "criticism from those who say legislation would deny Constitutional guarantees on the right to possess arms." Kennedy told the crowd that it was too easy for some people, like convicted murderers, to obtain guns through mail orders.
"A man on death row in Kansas, who killed half a dozen people, someone there sent for a rifle through the mail from Chicago for him to have a rifle while he was waiting on death row after killing people, and the rifle was sent to him," he said. "Does that make any sense that you should put rifles and guns in the hands of people who have long criminal records, people who are insane, people who are mentally incompetent, or people who are so young they don't know how to handle rifles or guns?" Kennedy was assassinated two weeks later in Los Angeles. Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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