Retired New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a former nurse whose experience with tragedy propelled her to become one of Congress’ most prominent gun control advocates, has died at the age of 81. 

The news was first reported Thursday by Newsday, a Long Island-based newspaper. Local New York media outlets did not immediately list a cause of death. McCarthy represented her southern Nassau County district in the House for nine terms. She retired from Congress in 2015, less than two years after she announced that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Born into a blue-collar Brooklyn household, McCarthy moved to Long Island when she was 8. In high school, her boyfriend was in a serious car accident; the private-duty nurse who cared for him before he died of his injuries inspired her to apply to nursing school, she once told Good Housekeeping magazine. McCarthy monitored terminally ill patients for 30 years.

A second tragedy put her on a political path: In December 1993, her husband and son were shot by a lone gunman on the Long Island Railroad. Her husband died and her son was seriously injured. The experience drove McCarthy to become a gun control activist.

Three years after the shootings, McCarthy was incensed when freshman Republican Daniel Frisa voted in 1996 to eliminate the ban on semi-automatic weapons. McCarthy was registered as a Republican and GOP officials tried to discourage her from running, so she launched a campaign as a Democrat to unseat him. She won with more than 57 percent of the vote.

Throughout her House career, McCarthy generally stuck with the Democratic Party. She was a steady friend of organized labor and supported legislation to promote abortion rights and environmental regulation. But some of her positions skewed more toward the center. As a member of the business-oriented New Democrat Coalition, she sought out the middle ground on some spending, budgetary and trade measures. 

In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that rattled the nation and prompted concern of further attacks, she backed expansions of surveillance authority and defense measures that more-liberal Democrats opposed.

In the 112th Congress (2011-12), she introduced bills to require background checks for every firearm sale. Every U.S. governor received a letter from her denouncing a 2011 House-passed bill to allow people with concealed-carry permits from one state to bring weapons to most other states, regardless of their laws. McCarthy called the bill an infringement of states’ rights.

She also proposed a ban on the use of high-capacity ammo magazines. Such a device was used in the shooting that killed her husband and were also used in the 2011 shooting of former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Both of those incidents, as well as the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech and the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, were followed by flurries of activity by McCarthy. 

Her most significant legislative achievement was her effort to bolster background checks on gun purchasers. But she ultimately left Washington without the major gun control overhaul she had sought.

She blamed the pro-gun lobby for making the political environment difficult: “When you’re working here in Congress and you see the odds and the stronghold the NRA and gun manufacturers have on members — basically threatening that they’re not going to win re-election — I think it’s tough,” she once said.

In January, former President Joe Biden gave her the Presidential Citizen’s Medal, one of the nation’s highest honors, for her work on gun control.

Following the news of her death, New York Democrat Tom Suozzi, who represents neighboring communities in Long Island, heralded McCarthy as one of the most dedicated gun violence prevention advocates in Congress.

“I first met Carolyn in early 1994, when I was the young mayor of Glen Cove, and her son, Kevin, was undergoing rehabilitation at Glen Cove Hospital,” Suozzi wrote on social media. “I followed her closely from her entry into politics and throughout her years in office. Our nation and our Island have lost a fierce champion.”