Charlestone, US--The killings stunned genteel Charleston -- where several hundred people, white and black, held a somber vigil on Friday evening -- and also reignited concerns about gun control in the United States.
President Barack Obama said that America was "shocked and heartbroken," but voiced confidence that its permissive gun laws would eventually change. He accused Congress of failing to act after a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 which killed 26 people, including 20 children.
"More than 11,000 Americans were killed by gun violence in 2013 alone. 11,000," a strident Obama told US mayors in San Francisco.
"At the very least we should be able to talk about this issue as citizens. Without demonizing all gun owners who are overwhelmingly law abiding, but also without suggesting that any debate about this involves a wild-eyed plot to take everybody's guns away," he said.
"I'm not resigned. I have faith we will eventually do the right thing," he added.
"We have the capacity to change, but we have to feel a sense of urgency about it."
- Loner dropout? -
Roof was arrested in North Carolina on Thursday and brought back to South Carolina after he opted not to fight extradition.
Magistrate Gosnell set bail at $1 million on a weapons charge, but Roof must go before another judge if he wants to seek bail on the murder charges. His attorney said he accepted the arrangement.
Conflicting descriptions of Roof, a high-school dropout, have emerged.
He is alternately described as a quiet, even friendly loner who snapped -- or a calculating white supremacist who supported segregation and had been planning for some time to kill blacks.
Two sources also confirmed to NBC News that Roof -- whose Facebook page includes a picture of him wearing the flags of defunct white supremacist regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia -- has confessed.
He told police that he "almost didn't go through with it because everyone was so nice to him," the sources told the network.
AFP
