Thread: New Clinton ad features husband of Emanuel AME shooting victim (video)

BY SAM TYSON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH 2016

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — South Carolinians will see a new Hillary Clinton ad starting this weekend, and it features the husband of Myra Thompson, one of the Emanuel AME shooting victims.

The ad opens with Rev. Anthony Thompson sitting on a porch swing talking about the call he got the night of the June 17 shooting that left nine people dead, including his wife, and a state representative and pastor.

"The first thing that came to my mind is we need to make some changes. Hillary is really committed to making sure that guns don't get into the wrong hands," Thompson said. "She's standing with the President to get stronger gun laws so no family ever has to go through anything like this again."

Two of Myra Thompson's children, Kevin Singleton and Denise Quarles, have also put their support behind the Clinton campaign and called on changes to stop gun violence.

"He took away the most precious person in the world to me," Quarles said. "She won't be able to see me get married or have kids because he bought a gun that he shouldn't have been able to get."

The ad says Clinton will work to close the "Charleston loophole," the three-day time limit for background checks for gun purchases. Under current federal law, the FBI does a background check on gun buyers in 30 states, including South Carolina, and if the check is not completed or rejected in three days, the seller can make the sale.

In accused church shooter Dylann Roof's case, botched paperwork and clerical errors led to Roof buying a gun.

When Roof tried to buy a gun in April, records show he had a drug arrest a month earlier, but the arresting agency was listed incorrectly so FBI background checkers were asking for arrest information from the wrong office.

Roof was able to buy a gun, and two months later investigators say he walked into Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston and killed nine people during a Bible study.

The ad will begin airing statewide in South Carolina starting this weekend, but it's not something state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter wants to see. She's known as the conscience of the Statehouse and the first African American woman to be elected to the House in South Carolina.

When it comes to the issue of Mother Emanuel being used for political gain, she doesn't feel right.

"While I appreciate the attention the candidates for President on both sides have shown there is a part of me that has a level of discomfort with deaths being used for political purposes," she said.

College of Charleston political science professor Dr. Gibbs Knotts says the ad could have a powerful effect on the state because having someone so closely connected to a tragedy like the shooting at Emanuel AME can sway support.

Hunter says she understand the impulse to use the tragedy as an example of lax gun laws, but she's hopeful all this talk translates into something that will benefit people across the country.

Republican presidential candidate also talked about the Emanuel shooting while at a campaign stop at Bob Jones University in Greenville -- but his focus was on religion.

Bush said he was moved to tears when the relatives of the victims offered forgiveness to the accused shooter. He also criticized President Barack Obama for shying away from discussing religion in light of such a tragedy.

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