Gun Control Advocates Blast ND Senator | Video

Cliff Naylor | 1/9/2013

North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp has been in office for less than a week but the freshman Democrat is already making national headlines. Heitkamp has become the target of gun control advocates because of comments she made on a network talk show, calling the Obama administration gun restriction proposals "extreme."

Today, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence placed full-page ads in several national and North Dakota newspapers blasting her position on gun control.

"I think all of this focus on gun control in the aftermath has ignored probably the more critical problem which is mental health. So I am going to be a huge advocate of looking at our mental health system and how people slip through the cracks when we know people are dangerous, what should we be doing as a society," Heitkamp said.

In response to the attack ads, Heitkamp says she believes any solution to mass shootings must go beyond focusing solely on gun laws and should also make attempts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.

The critical newspaper ads are signed by parents of victims of mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado; Tucson, Arizona and Virginia Tech College.

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