WASHINGTON ¨C Republican presidential candidates steered clear on Thursday of addressing the role gun rights and racial tensions may have played in a deadly mass shooting in South Carolina as Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called for the United States to face what she called the ¡°hard truths¡± underpinning the tragedy.
The responses to the attack in Charleston, in which a white man is suspected of killing nine black people at a historic church, showed the contrasting pressures facing White House hopefuls in each party as they prepare for primary contests.
Clinton and other Democrats are appealing to a racially diverse voter base that has been frustrated by an inability to tighten gun laws after other mass shootings. Those voters are also increasingly vocal about heavy-handed law-enforcement tactics in black communities following a series of police killings of unarmed African-American men.
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