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New York Times uses front-page editorial to call for tighter gun laws

by Elliot Smilowitz - 12/05/15 7:35 AM ET

The New York Times on Saturday ran a front-page editorial for the first time since 1920, using the space to call for tougher regulations on guns.

The editorial, headlined “End the Gun Epidemic in America,” says that “certain kinds of weapons,” such as the combat rifles used by attackers who killed 14 in San Bernardino, Calif., this week, should be outlawed.

{mosads}“The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms,” the editorial reads.

“America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday.”

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, said in a statement late Friday that the newspaper chose to put the call to action on the front page “to deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns.”

Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik are suspected of killing 14 and injuring 21 in a shooting at a San Bernardino social center Wednesday, before being killed in a shootout with police.

The incident joined a list of high-profile mass shootings, including one last month at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., and another in October at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

Prominent Democrats including President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have called for lawmaker action to tighten gun laws in the days since the San Bernardino shooting.

The last time the Times published an editorial on the front page was June 13, 1920, when the newspaper expressed disapproval of presidential candidate Warren G. Harding. Harding went on to be elected president that fall. He died in office in 1923.

Tags Bernie Sanders Gun control Hillary Clinton New York Times San Bernardino shootings