Politics of grief and gun control after latest shooting

[...] within hours of the mass shooting, social media was awash with pushback from gun control advocates calling out those who offer prayers without pushing for tighter gun laws.

Volsky said in an interview that his Twitter campaign stemmed from frustration with those who "routinely talk about all the thoughts and prayers they're going to send to victims, and yet they do nothing time and time again in terms of actually reducing these things from happening."

The New York Daily News expressed the same idea on a front page with the blaring headline "God Isn't Fixing This" coupled with images of tweets about prayers from GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Josh Earnest, Obama's press secretary, told reporters, "We've got too many members of Congress who are terrified of the NRA, while too many Americans are terrified of a mass shooting."

During the 2014 election cycle, the NRA and its affiliates spent more than $35 million on campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures and so-called issue ads supporting or opposing candidates, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

[...] she pointed out in an email that California has one of the nation's strongest gun control laws, including background checks on all firearms sales and strict limitation on licenses to carry concealed weapons.