Andy Parker: Thoughts and Prayers Won’t Stop Mass Shootings; We Need Action
CAMEROTA: “... gunned down on live television, along with her camera man, Adam Ward. Her dad, Andy Parker, has since made it his mission to try to stop gun violence and he joins us now. Mr. Parker, thank you for being here. It’s so terrible to have to talk to you about yet another sickening shooting, particularly given how fresh and raw your daughter’s death was to all of us still. I mean we all still remember, of course, those horrifying and haunting images. But, obviously, it’s more painful — the most painful for you when you hear of another story like this. Can you tell us how you are processing it?”
PARKER: “Well, Alisyn, I wish that we were meeting under — or seeing each other again under different circumstances, but I’m afraid that, you know, we’re going to have to be welcoming new members of a club that no one wants to join. And, you know, I know exactly what these families are going through. I know the devastation that you feel and the anguish. You know, your life will never be the same again.”
CAMEROTA: “When your daughter was killed, you vowed to make preventing gun violence, as best you could, your life’s mission. So in the three-plus month since that horrible episode, what have you learned about how to stop this?”
PARKER: “Well, you know, people say well it’s, you know, a lot of — a lot of politicians merely suggest that it’s a mental health issue, which certainly it can be. But, you know, the commonality is that there are, you know, too many dangerous people and people that shouldn’t have guns have access to them. But, you know, we have the ability to make change. In Virginia we just came through an election that I was involved with and we — we elected a sensible gun legislation political leader to the Virginia senate. So it can be done. But it’s — you know, it’s going to take people around this country to just say, you know, we’ve had enough. Thoughts and prayers, you know, that’s great, but that’s not going to bring the victims that — in San Bernardino back. It’s not going to bring Allison back. We have to have action. And I think we are moving the needle, if the election in Virginia is any different, but it’s going to have to come from people exerting pressure on the politicians to do something.”
