CAROL COSTELLO: I want to ask you about what this NRA host said. Did you hear that? We played that right before I introduced you.
ANDY PARKER, ALISON PARKER'S FATHER: I did and I'd heard that and to suggest that we shouldn't be emotional is insulting and disingenuous. I think that the vast majority of NRA members are with us. I mean, really, the knee-jerk reaction from the leadership is any reasonable or common sense approach to gun legislation or gun safety, getting guns out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them is met with this knee-jerk reaction of, “Well, you're going to take away our guns. Guns don't cause the problem. It's mental health, it's a mental issue.” And they're right, they're absolutely right, it is a mental health issue, but it's also a gun issue and they're linked together, and somehow, and we're working on that, we have to be able to do something to keep these guns out of the hands of people that shouldn't be obtaining them. And that's closing gun show loopholes, it's -- there was legislation in California that was passed, the gun violence restraining order, that was a similar measure was put up for a vote here in Virginia and it was defeated. And I heard the comments of Jeb Bush earlier that rural areas are different than urban areas and I think that's just completely -- I mean, that's ridiculous, that was a ridiculous comment. So, I want the nation to know I'm not trying to take away anybody's guns. I'm for the Second Amendment, but we have to do something to prevent these shootings from happening by crazy people.
[...]
PARKER: I can tell you the outpouring of affection and the response has been visceral not in this country but all over the world. And the interviews that I've done internationally, they just don't get it because we don't have the market cornered on people that have mental illness. But we do have the market cornered on people with mental illness that have access to weapons, and that's the thing we've got to stop. And again that's what -- I don't think the leadership of the NRA understands, but I think their membership does. And we want to work with those people, with the reasonable people to do something about this.
