Mayor Louie Welch on RFK Assassination (1968)

Duration: 0:52

Year Published: 1968

Sound: sound

Description: In this news segment for Houston’s KPRC-TV, Mayor Louie Welch comments on the assault on United State Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Just after midnight on June 5, 1968, 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan fatally shot Kennedy as he exited through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan fired multiple times, wounding five others besides Kennedy, before bystanders disarmed and subdued him. Kennedy died nearly 26 hours later. He had been at the hotel to address campaign supporters following his win in the California primary election. Sirhan was convicted of murder in 1969, and sentenced to life in prison in 1972. The national debate surrounding federal gun control legislation that began with the JFK assassination in 1963 reached new heights following the RFK assassination. Congress ultimately passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 to ban the mail-order sale of handguns, rifles, and shotguns as well as prohibit certain felons, drug users, and those found mentally incompetent from buying guns.