Father of Virginia Shooting Victim Alison Parker Makes Gun Control Plea to President Obama

Maybe now is a good time for President Obama to get a grip on America’s gun problem.

Andy Parker — the father of Alison Parker, the 24-year-old WDBJ7 TV reporter who was killed in an on-air shooting in Virginia, along with her colleague, cameraman Adam Ward — directly solicited Obama’s help in a video interview with the BBC, the day after losing his daughter: “Mr. President, you need to do this. Please do it. Please do it for us and for other people so they’re not going to lose their Alisons and their Adams,” he said.

The BBC continued:

President Obama supported legislation to extend background checks for gun buyers and a ban on rapid-firing assault weapons after 26 people were killed at a school in Newton, Connecticut, but it was rejected in 2013.

Last month, he told the BBC the failure to pass “common sense gun safety laws” was the greatest frustration of his presidency.

On Wednesday, he said the US needed to do “a better job of making sure that people who have problems, people who shouldn’t have guns, don’t have them.”

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said she would “take on” the issue of gun violence, while admitting it was “a very political, difficult issue in America”.

In his video message, Parker pointed to Obama’s recent and unlikely victories with health care reform and the nuclear deal with Iran as evidence that he could get similar traction on the gun control reform effort. “You can do it,” Parker said. “I will help you do it.”

–Posted by Kasia Anderson