Watch: RFK talks gun control in Roseburg, Oregon in 1968

From the archives: RFK talks gun control

Five decades before last week's mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was campaigning in the same town, calling for stricter gun-control measures.

Shooting highlights inaction by Congress on gun violence

In this clip from May 25, 1968, CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite noted that Kennedy had "long pushed for strong gun control laws" and was responding to critics who said such legislation would deny Constitutional guarantees on the right to possess arms.

Kennedy spoke about the ease with which potentially dangerous people could obtain guns through mail orders or other means.

"At the present moment, a person who is insane, a man with a long criminal record of having killed a dozen people, can go in a buy a rifle," he said.

He cited a case in which a man on death row in Kansas was able to receive a firearm through the mail.

"Does that make any sense that you should put rifles and guns in the hands of people who have long criminal records or people who are insane or people who are mentally incompetent or people who are so young that they don't know how to handle rifles or guns?" Kennedy said.

Two weeks later, Kennedy was assassinated by a gunman in Los Angeles.

President Obama is scheduled to visit Roseburg on Friday.

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