O’Malley on Charleston: ‘I’m pissed’

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley on Friday said he is fed up with a “national crisis” of gun violence following the mass shooting at a historic black church in South Carolina.

“I’m pissed,” the former Maryland governor wrote in an email to supporters. “I’m pissed that after an unthinkable tragedy like the one in South Carolina yesterday, instead of jumping to act, we sit back and wait for the appropriate moment to say what we’re all thinking: that this is not the America we want to be living in.”

{mosads}”I’m pissed that we’re actually asking ourselves the horrific question of, what will it take? How many senseless acts of violence in our streets or tragedies in our communities will it take to get our nation to stop caving to special interests like the NRA when people are dying?”

O’Malley, who trails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in polls for the Democratic presidential nomination, touted measures implemented during his tenure as governor, such as banning many types of assault-style weapons and establishing new requirements for handgun purchasers.

He called for those measures on a broader scale, as well as “stricter background checks.”

He also boasted about his “F rating” from the National Rifle Association in the email, while echoing the call from President Obama to address the issue of gun violence.

Earlier in the day Friday, O’Malley said Americans and their elected representatives need to “step up” on gun control following the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., which left nine people dead.

“This is just another one of those heartbreaking massacres that we suffer from as a country,” O’Malley said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We have a horrible problem with violence and gun violence.”