Issuing an emotional plea following the South Carolina church shooting, Hillary Rodham Clinton called for “common-sense” gun reforms and a national reckoning with the persistent problem of “institutional racism.”

Three days after nine black church members were gunned down in Charleston, Clinton said the country must take steps to keep guns from criminals and the mentally ill.

Regulations, she said, can be passed while still respecting the Second Amendment and “respecting responsible gun owners.”

“The politics on this issue have been poisoned, but we can’t give up,” she told the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco on Saturday. “The stakes are too high. The costs are too dear.”

[TIME]