Kamala Harris Invokes Sandy Hook Slayings in Iowa Town Hall

NEWTOWN, CT — California Democrat and presidential aspirant Sen. Kamala Harris invoked the memory of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School slayings during a town hall event in Iowa on Monday.

Billed as a "CNN Presidential Candidate Town Hall," the question and answer session was delivered on the news network Monday night.

Pressed by a questioner identified as the pastor at the Central Presbyterian Church in Des Moines about "rates of gun violence in America" that are "astronomically higher than in other Western democracies, Harris referenced the Sandy Hook shootings of just over six years ago in her answer:

"Twenty six- and seven-year-old babies were massacred in Connecticut, (Congress) failed to act. Here's what I think. I think somebody should have required— and this is going to sound very harsh — I think somebody should have required all the members of congress to go into a room, a locked room, no press, nobody else, and look at the autopsy photos of those babies. And then you vote your conscience."

Calling the influence of the National Rifle Association "real" but the organization itself a "paper tiger," Harris concluded that "There is no reason why we cannot have reasonable gun safety laws in this country."

Photo of Sen. Kamala Harris via Getty Images