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After TV slaying, reporter's dad finds voice on gun control

While his articulate Southern voice renews a push for gun restrictions, winning such measures has proved nearly impossible in the U.S., even after other high-profile tragedies garnered sympathy across the country and elicited similar pledges of activism from victim's relatives. With no apparent criminal record or other disqualifying incidents in his past, Flanagan passed a background check to buy his weapon. Speaking outside the Roanoke television station where his daughter worked, Parker said he's not against gun ownership in general, but stricter background checks are needed to keep guns away from mentally ill people. Parker was referring to the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 26 children and educators and the July 2012 killing of 12 people in a packed theater in Colorado. A push spurred in part by relatives of the Sandy Hook victims for stricter national gun control laws, including universal background checks, failed in Congress. Nicole Hockley, who lost her 6-year-old son in the shooting and is now communications director for the Sandy Hook Promise advocacy group, said Parker faces difficult choices as he considers how to fight gun violence. Hockley said the defeat of gun control legislation in Congress led the group to change its strategy toward fostering a national dialogue on the issues of gun violence and mental wellness. Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Parker's advocacy so soon after his daughter's death "speaks volumes about his strength and his commitment to fight for reform." The advocacy group was formed after Ronald Reagan's press secretary James Brady was shot in an assassination attempt on the president.

 

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