Watch the Grieving Father of the Slain Virginia Reporter Make an Emotional Plea for Gun Control

“Whatever it takes to get gun legislation…this is something that is Alison’s legacy that I want to make happen.”


The father of a Virginia journalist who was gunned down during a live TV broadcast delivered an emotional message about gun laws during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night.

“We can only take some solace in the fact that she had a wonderful life, she was extremely happy,” Andy Parker told Fox NewsMegyn Kelly of his late daughter, Alison.

Alison, a reporter for Virginia station WDBJ, was shot on Wednesday morning along with photographer and cameraman Adam Ward. The police say the suspected gunman was Vester Flanagan, who also used the name Bryce Williams. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

As Andy Parker struggled through tears, he said he wanted to honor his daughter by taking a powerful stand: “We have got to do something about crazy people getting guns.”

The suspected shooter, a former reporter for WDBJ, had been fired and escorted by the police off the TV station’s premises in 2013. His firing came after several incidents in which he acted aggressively toward colleagues, station officials say. After Flanagan allegedly opened fire on Wednesday, ABC says a man claiming to be Bryce Williams sent a 23-page fax to the network, praising the gunmen responsible for the shootings at Virginia Tech and Columbine. The document also said racism played a role in Wednesday’s shooting, and that the alleged shooter had gotten the gun days after the Charleston shooting in June.

The tragedy has sparked renewed calls for tighter gun control measures, which have historically been difficult to pass in Virginia. Since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that left 32 dead, gun laws have actually loosened in the state. Background checks are currently not required to purchase firearms at gun shows.

Hours after the shooting on Wednesday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said he would continue to push for gun control legislation, even though he was unable to pass a package in January that included restrictions on handgun purchases and new requirements for background checks. As The Huffington Post reports

“I’ve proposed this now twice to the General Assembly. I ran on the topic. It was part of my platform that we need tougher gun laws in the Commonwealth,” McAuliffe said during a Wednesday morning appearance on WTOP’s monthly “Ask the Governor” program, in which listeners and live blog readers can pose questions.  

“I will continue to push [gun control] as I have in two legislative sessions so far,” he said. “I put it up again last year. It never sees the light of day.”

Allison’s father Andy vowed to keep fighting as well, telling Fox that he would make gun control his “mission in life”:

“Whatever it takes to get gun legislation, to shame people, to shame legislators into doing something about closing loopholes and background checks and making sure crazy people don’t get guns,” he said. “So, this is not the last you have heard of me—this is something that is Alison’s legacy that I want to make happen.” 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate