Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley have called for new gun regulations in the aftermath of the Dec. 2 shooting in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 and injured 17 individuals.

Clinton has long been known to support tougher gun control, and the former secretary of state did not mince words when she addressed the issue on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"We can't stop every incident of gun violence, but we sure can stop a lot of them," the Democratic front-runner said at a campaign event on a college campus in the crucial early primary state of New Hampshire. "We need to take action now."

As a senator from Vermont -- a state with a strong gun culture -- Sanders had been more tepid on the issue in the past. But the former Burlington mayor similarly spoke out for new gun restrictions. He also voiced support for two measures pending in the Senate that seek to narrow access to guns and that so far have been successfully blocked by congressional Republicans, the newspaper noted.

"This is not an easy problem to solve," Sanders admitted as he spoke in the nation's capital. "But just because it is not an easy problem to solve, does not mean that we should not do everything that we can."

Former Maryland Gov. O'Malley told Fusion's Jorge Ramos that the San Bernardino shooting could finally restart efforts for legislative regulation.

"We've now had more mass shootings than we've had days in this year, and perhaps this is the incident that tips the balance and we finally do this," said O'Malley, later adding, "Perhaps this is that incident where we see that there's actually a connection here, that it's not safe, it's not right, it's not responsible for us to allow people to buy combat weapons, combat assault weapons so readily in our country. We're the only developed nation on the planet that allows that."

But Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz suggested that gun control was not the issue and that the California incident showed that the United States was in a "time of war," USA Today noted. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, meanwhile, echoed his Texas colleague's assessment, noting that the world was becoming more dangerous.

Clinton, for her part, noted at yet another New Hampshire rally that she was nevertheless stunned that many Republicans would not ban gun sales even for individuals who appear on the no-fly list used by airlines, The Wall Street Journal said.

"I don't understand the rationale behind that at all," she said. "On this issue, where people who are too dangerous to fly in America can still buy guns in America, there should be no debate."