“There are too many guns in the hands of people who should not have guns”, McAuliffe said. “It was part of my platform that we need tougher gun laws in the Commonwealth, I have advocated for background checks”.
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Flanagan shot Parker and Ward and wounded the woman they were interviewing, Vicki Gardner, the head of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce.
Martin O’Malley, a fellow Democratic candidate, tweeted that the shooting was “senseless” and said his thoughts were with the local TV station.
WDBJ let him go in February 2013, the daily reported.
McAuliffe said that Virginia could not afford to ignore the issue given incidents like the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, but that the state legislature has not been receptive to any of his gun control proposals.
And yet he said of stricter gun control, “It doesn’t get through the General Assembly. This is all we know”. “The president continues to believe that they should do so”. “Our country has a gun violence problem, and shootings like these are far too common in our country. But this time, the horror unfolded live and on air, for all to see”.
The latest push for gun control comes amid a spate of mass shootings this summer in Chattanooga, Tenn., Lafayette, La. and Charleston, S.C. In the wake of those tragedies, lawmakers and presidential candidates have been wading into the debate. Sen. Currently, Virginia buyers don’t have to undergo a background check for purchases made at gun shows.
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A television reporter and photographer for a CBS affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia, were killed in a shooting that happened during a live television report Wednesday morning.
