Andy Parker: Oregon shooting shows we are at war

We are engaged in a war in this country. It is a war between rational, responsible people and self-interested zealots; a war between good and evil. It is a war to decide whether we will continue to let the senseless tragedy of gun violence continue. It is a war to put reasonable safeguards in place to prevent incidents like that which occurred in Oregon yesterday.

On one side of that war is a group that is successfully fighting to ensure that a discussion to try to find solutions never takes place. Everyone knows of whom I'm talking: the National Rifle Association. An organization that had at its founding the core mission to teach firearm safety, now has set itself on a course to prevent any laws from being enacted to do just that. And some of our legislators are complicit in this crime. Is the support of a fringe element of the NRA so important that they are willing to accept our children as collateral damage?

On the other side are the families and their circles of loved ones whose lives have been shattered by the devastation of gun violence. And every year, 30,000 new families and circles of loved ones are inducted into this fraternity. This is the fraternity my wife, Barbara and I joined almost exactly a month ago.

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On August 26th, a disturbed gunman shot my daughter Alison on live television. Yesterday another senseless act of gun violence took place in this country. This time ten individuals lost their lives and seven were wounded; 17 families and their circles of loved ones now enter a fraternity they did not choose to join. It is the fraternity of those whose lives have been permanently changed by the brutality of gun violence.

I was a Reagan Republican years ago. I have slowly watched the party mutate into something Reagan wouldn't recognize today, with an agenda he would not have supported. Republican legislators across the country refuse to consider common sense measures to prevent the horrific gun violence that kills our loved ones each and every day. By refusing to act, they are aiding and abetting domestic terrorism.

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I am also from Texas and, like many from that state, I believe in the rights guaranteed in the Second Amendment. But with rights come responsibilities.

It is not sufficient to say, "There's nothing you can do to prevent someone, even someone who is mentally ill, from getting a gun if they want it." Something can be done if we try hard enough. For example, following the tragic 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista, California passed a Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) policy GVRO, a life-saving reform that allows family members and/or law enforcement to petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms from a loved one in crisis.

The parents of the gunman in that case, Elliot Rodger, had requested a welfare check on their son because they believed he was a potential threat. Law enforcement officers did the check, but had no authority to remove Rodgers' firearms from his home. The results were disastrous. Lives were taken for no good reason at all; certainly no reason our Founders would have supported. To California legislators' credit, they wasted no time in taking decisive action to prevent the next tragedy.

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Of course we have no way of knowing whether a bill like this would have made a difference in my daughter's case, in the incident yesterday, or in the cases of the almost daily occurrences of gun violence. We don't know if the family was aware of a problem. Nor do we know whether removing firearms would have just prompted him to use something else.

But we do know that we must have an open and honest discussion in this country about what we can do as a people to reduce the number of victims of gun violence. Only through engagement in a meaningful and honest dialogue can we hope to find a solution. But I do not underestimate our enemy.

We are at war in this country for the answers, and we must win – whatever it takes.

Andy Parker lives in Virginia.

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