PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Gun control measures debated in wake of Roanoke journalist killings :: 08/29/2015
ROANOKE, Va. -- More effective gun control is expected to be a tough issue to tackle, even as family members and political leaders decry this week's on-air killing of two journalists.
"We've got to keep crazy people from getting guns," said Andy Parker, father of reporter Alison Parker who was shot to death Wednesday with cameraman Adam Ward. Parker spoke to reporters outside WDBJ-TV after a visit with the station's staff and victims' families by Virginia's Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
WDBJ's General Manager, Jeff Marks, said he also urged action on the issue from Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who represents Roanoke.
"I told him 'Deal with this issue. Do what you need to do about guns. This public debate needs to continue,'" Marks said.
Parker said he will dedicate himself to lobbying politicians on the issue and called on the press to join him.
"I guarantee you, somebody's got an answer to this and I'm going to find out about it and make it happen," he said. To the reporters standing before him, he said, "You've got to hold people's feet to the fire…. She (Alison) was one of you guys and you've got a voice."
He called for politicians to require more stringent background checks, and said those who don't should be required to explain why they'd oppose "reasonable proposals."
The Virginia legislature in January rejected several gun control bills supported by McAuliffe, which would have barred misdemeanor domestic violence offenders and child support deadbeats from buying guns.
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers declined to be interviewed on the guns so soon after the tragedy.
"In my opinion, it is important for the families, the WDBJ employees and our community to grieve, console and heal," Bowers said in an email. "Thus, I choose not to take advantage of these unfortunate circumstances, nor say or do anything that might cause conflict or antagonism."
Parker spoke in front of a makeshift memorial of balloons and flowers, where residents from around the Roanoke region had come since the shooting to pay respect to the victims.
Gloria Davis, 69, of Salem, Va., a retired child services employee who'd dealt with parents angry about having their children put under protective custody, arrived earlier to say a prayer for the reporter and cameraman she'd watched most mornings on television.
Gun owners should be required to obtain a license like motor vehicle operators, with safety tests and better mental health monitoring, Davis said.
"Some people are just not equipped to mentally to have a gun," she said.
Her granddaughter Sasha Brown, 15, was not sure that would work because she knows other young people who've obtained guns illegally.
"If it's easy for you to get one and it's not legal for you to get one, you're probably not using it for the right purpose," Brown said.
Paul Springer, 59, a disabled Roanoke carpenter who grew up Asbury Park, N.J., brought a bunch of flowers to the memorial. Springer said he's in favor of some gun limits, but that passing such laws is difficult in a country with a history of urban riots. The unrest in Fergusson, Mo., last year was a reminder of large urban riots of the 1960s, which have left the American psyche scarred, he said.
"It all comes down to people worried that something's going to go down and they won't have any weapons to defend themselves," Springer said. "I'm pro-Second Amendment, but I do believe not everyone should carry a gun."
As for preventing the mentally ill from purchasing a gun, Springer said that's "undoable" because it would be too complicated and expensive.
"You can't do a psychological profile of every gun buyer," Springer said. "That's not going to happen."
Vester Flanagan, who killed Parker and Ward and shot and injured the woman they were interviewing, purchased the handgun he used legally after passing a background check. Flanagan had been fired from WDBJ more than two years ago, in part for anger issues, and was escorted from the station by police.
Roy Frame, a manager at Roanoke Firearms a few blocks from the station, said the mental health component of Virginia's background check only reports people who were voluntarily or involuntarily committed for a mental health reason.
"There are a lot of people who are angry," Frame said. "They can't do mental checks on people on a regular basis."
Frame said he could see the benefit of some kind of licensing requirements, but that he'd worry about restrictions that would bar customers he has helped, such as an elderly veteran or battered women who need to protect themselves.
"There's no magic button for this," Frame said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/08/28/murder-father-journalists-parker-gun-control/71344580/
