Journalist Killings Revive US Gun Control Debate
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The brazen killing of two US journalists during a live television broadcast by a former reporter fired by the station reignited calls Thursday for tougher gun control in America -- though there was little hope for change.
Mass shootings in the United States -- from the 2012 school massacre in Newtown to June's slaying of black churchgoers in Charleston -- regularly prompt widespread hand-wringing about easy US access to guns, and a need for action.
The killings on Wednesday of reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, as they conducted an early morning on-air interview for WDBJ -- a CBS affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia -- were no different.
"How many massacres do we have to have... before the public cries out and says what it is that they want us to do?" Roanoke Mayor David Bowers said on CNN. "We just haven't reached a consensus on this in America."
Parker and Ward were shot dead at close range by 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan, who was dismissed from WDBJ in 2013 over angry, erratic behavior. Images from Ward's camera as the attack took place were aired live.
The woman they were interviewing was also shot, but was in good condition on Thursday.
Parker's father Andy made an impassioned plea for change, saying his daughter's death had left him heartbroken.
"I'm for the Second Amendment, but there has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA (National Rifle Association) to come to grips and make sense -- have sensible laws so that crazy people can't get guns," he said, according to an AFP report.
"It can't be that hard, and yet politicians from the local level to the state level to the national level, they side-step the issue. They kick the can down the road. This can't happen anymore."
The constitution's Second Amendment -- enshrining the right to bear arms -- is defended tooth and nail by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the main US gun rights lobbying group, which has been successful in blunting drives to restrict weapons sales.
US lawmakers have been hesitant to enact tougher limitations on access to guns, in part because they are loath to anger voters for whom gun rights cannot be abridged in any way.
President Barack Obama made a concerted effort to push gun control legislation through Congress in the wake of the Newtown school shooting, but the draft went nowhere.
"It breaks my heart every time you read or hear about these kinds of incidents," Obama told an ABC affiliate in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
"What we know is that the number of people who die from gun-related incidents around this country dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism."