Ms. McCarthy’s political career began with tragedy in December 1993, when her husband was among six people killed in a shooting on a Long Island commuter train.

After a deranged shooter killed her husband and wounded her son on a Long Island commuter train in 1993, she went to Congress on a mission to curb gun violence.

Gun control crusader and former U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York has died. She was 81. McCarthy was a political novice who successfully ran for Congress in 1996 as a crusader for gun control after a mass shooting on a New York commuter train left her husband dead and her son severely wounded.