Mark Kelly: "It's a really tragic day for democracy"
WASHINGTON -- Retired astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, described Wednesday as "a really tragic day for democracy."
Kelly spoke with Scott Pelley on the "CBS Evening News" hours after a shooting at a baseball practice in Virginia that left several, including House Republican Steve Scalise, injured.
"You have members of Congress meeting there," Kelly said, "and somebody showed up there to kill them."
"That should not happen in this country or any other country," he said.
Kelly also discussed loopholes in background checks in the U.S. that he'd like to see plugged, saying they're "in a lot of places."
"You can walk into a gun show and buy a gun without getting a background check. You can also do that over the internet," he said. "It just doesn't make a lot of sense. And we know felons, domestic abusers and we know that even suspected terrorists buy firearms in that way. So, we should close those loopholes."
The gunman in Wednesday's shooting, 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson, of Belleville, Illinois, opened fire while Republicans practiced for a Thursday night charity baseball game, which will be played against a team of Democrats. Hodgkinson died from wounds he sustained in a subsequent gun battle with police, he left behind a trail of bitterness directed at the rich, the Republicans and the president.
"We shouldn't have to wake up month after month and see things like this happen," Kelly said Wednesday.
Earlier Wednesday, Giffords, who suffered a serious traumatic brain injury in the 2011 shooting, called the shooting "an attack on all who serve, and on all who participate in our democracy."