WASHINGTON—Republican presidential contenders on Friday condemned the deadly shootings in South Carolina as an attack on faith, offering deeply personal responses to the murders but no suggestion that they see gun control as part of the answer.
“The idea that anyone, that any human being, would walk into a church and sit there for an hour and pray with people that he intended to murder, is depraved, it’s unthinkable,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said at a gathering of evangelical Christians and GOP hopefuls.
But he said “laws can’t change” such attacks. “Only the good will and love of the American people can let those folks know that that act is unacceptable, disgraceful. We need to do more to show that we love each other.”
