After a 24-year-old woman on Monday became the eighth person killed by gun violence in less than two weeks in Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh this week blasted the state's gun laws for "getting kind of soft," and suggested he would look to Beacon Hill to get tougher.

Walsh called the murder of Alicia Restrepo in Dorchester on Monday night a "sad situation," and said that access to guns continues to be problem in the city where police have confiscated 575 illegal firearms this year.

"I think we have to look at the gun laws. I think our gun laws are getting kind of soft here in Massachusetts as far as people getting caught with a gun and I think we might have to look at filing legislation to strengthen them," Walsh said.

The shooting in Dorchester was the eighth incident of deadly gun violence in 10 days in Boston.

"You can't stop them," Walsh said, about the shootings. "What we have to do is continually put down the programs. There are other circumstances here and we're looking into why is this happening."

Walsh said police were looking into the histories of those involved in recent shootings, including the victims and the perpetrators, and well as the relationships between the parties and whether past disputes led to the violence.

When asked about the city's gun buyback program, Walsh said, "We're taking guns off the street. That's not the issue. The issue is too much access to guns."

"I know we want to decriminalize a lot of offenses and I agree with that and I think that there are a lot of cases where we should look at, instead of incarceration, treatment, but in some of these gun cases we might need to go tougher with them. I think we need to start holding people accountable who have access to these guns."

"Something More Severe"

Under state law, illegal possession of a firearm carries a penalty in state prison of not less than two and one-half years nor more than five years, or for not less than 18 months nor more than two and one-half years in a jail or house of correction.

In addition to Attorney General Maura Healey's crackdown on "copycat" assault weapons, the Legislature this session passed two laws aimed at reducing gun violence, both of which were responses to deadly mass shootings in Nevada and Florida. The House and Senate banned bump stocks, which allow rifles to be modified to react like an automatic weapon, and passed a "red flag" law authorizing friends and family to petition the court to have someone's guns taken away if they pose a risk.

During the debate on the "red flag" law Jamaica Plain Democrat Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz said more needed to be done to address gun violence in urban areas like Dorchester, Roxbury, Springfield and Holyoke.

Chang-Diaz said that stronger laws are needed to address illegally obtained guns, including a limit on the purchasing of firearms to no more than 15 a year.

"If all lives matter we need more solutions that not only make our middle class families feel safer but that will actually decrease the number of shattering calls too many parents receive in our commonwealth," Chang-Diaz said back in June.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo, who has spearheaded much of the action in the Legislature to tighten and improve gun laws in recent years, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Walsh, who used to serve in the Legislature, said that city police have taken almost 3,000 illegal guns off the streets in the past four years, highlighting the depth of the problem.

"We might have to think about doing something more severe when it comes to possession of a gun," Walsh said.