Promising to air “all sides” in their ongoing series “Voices Against Violence,” Monday’s CBS Evening News featured its second installment with gun control activist Andy Parker, who used the occasion to blast the “cowards” at the National Rifle Association (NRA) for “blocking...sensible gun legislation.”
Anchor Scott Pelley first explained that the debate over “gun violence is the subject of our new series ‘Voices Against Violence.’” Adding that the network plans will be “hearing from all sides of the issue,” Pelley introduced Parker: “Tonight, the father of Alison Parker, a reporter for WDBJ, our CBS station in Roanoke, Virginia, who was murdered alongside photographer Adam Ward.”
Parker started off by reminding viewers of how he came to prominence following the horrifying murder of his daughter before transitioning to his argument that “we are at war” and facing cases of “domestic terrorism” as a country. In turn, he has decided to “take action” by lobbying for gun control.
Emphasizing that “the first thing I would do would be to impress upon the people that are pro-gun that we're not trying the take their guns away” because “[w]e're not trying to repeal the Second Amendment,” Parker laid into the liberal boogeyman known as the NRA:
The NRA pumps millions and millions of dollars into campaigns, and it’s all coming from gun manufacturers with the extreme portions and factions of the NRA and the gun lobby, there is no middle ground. I'm going to be going out with the [Virginia] governor [Terry McAuliffe] to call out these cowards that are blocking legislation to do sensible gun legislation.
He concluded his commentary by touting the hope that he and McAuliffe will be “successful” in ensuring that “Virginia’s going to be the model for 2016 for the rest of the country, and they can look to this state to see change coming.”
In the first edition of the series on October 5, former Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy highlighted the need for a more robust conversation about the state of mental health in U.S. and the need for more wholesale changes in the system to ensure those who need help (like members of his family that he alluded to) can receive it as opposed to slipping through the cracks.
With Kennedy and now Parker, it will be interesting to see how CBS continues the series and whether they will stick to the pledge to give time to “all sides of the issue.”
The transcript of the segment from the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley on October 19 can be found below.
CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley
October 19, 2015
6:44 p.m. EasternSCOTT PELLEY: What to do about gun violence is the subject of our new series called “Voices Against Violence.” We're hearing from all sides of the issue. Tonight, the father of Alison Parker, a reporter for WDBJ, our CBS station in Roanoke, Virginia, who was murdered alongside photographer Adam Ward.
ANDY PARKER: I'm Andy Parker. My daughter Alison was a journalist that was murdered on live television, and that's why I have joined this effort to change things in this country, because we are at war. We have domestic terrorism and through our grief, we take action and the first thing I would do would be to impress upon the people that are pro-gun that we're not trying the take their guns away. We're not trying to repeal the Second Amendment. We can't do that. The NRA pumps millions and millions of dollars into campaigns, and it’s all coming from gun manufacturers with the extreme portions and factions of the NRA and the gun lobby, there is no middle ground. I'm going to be going out with the governor to call out these cowards that are blocking legislation to do sensible gun legislation. I believe that if we are successful, and I think we will be, Virginia’s going to be the model for 2016 for the rest of the country, and they can look to this state to see change coming.
PELLEY: The view of Andy Parker, the father of reporter Alison Parker.
