My daughter’s Twitter slay – and now this

After my daughter Alison's shooter posted her murder video on Twitter, I feared there would be a copycat incident. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when. It made me think of the darkly satirical movie, “Network.” When I first saw it, it seemed so dystopian and far-fetched. Howard Beale, the anchorman, gets assassinated on live television because of poor ratings. I couldn’t imagine it would ever happen (except maybe on Fox News), but now thanks to social media — as we’ve learned again through the killing of Robert Godwin in Cleveland — murder has become a vehicle for notoriety. Sadly, for all the good Facebook can do, we now see its potential to turn mentally unstable killers into instant celebrities. They now have their own vehicle to make them reality TV stars, just like the one in the White House. My hope is that Americans don’t become totally desensitized to the ceaseless slaughter that costs 90 lives in the country every day. Unfortunately, twisted souls are going to do evil things using available avenues, no matter what we do. But as I’ve written many times, there are things we can do to save lives. One of the few bills Congress passed in the new session on a partyline vote was reversing President Barack Obama’s executive order barring those deemed mentally incapable of handling their own affairs to buy a gun. It shows the hypocrisy of the NRA-controlled Republican Congress. When confronted with the proliferation of gun violence, their response has historically been, “It’s not a gun issue, it’s a mental health issue.” They’re half-right — it’s both. On Sunday, my wife, Barbara, my son Drew, Alison’s boyfriend Chris Hurst and I were at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., for the candlelight vigil marking the 10th anniversary of what is now the second worst mass shooting in American history. Orlando passed it for the No. 1 spot last year. We’re never going to entirely stop the lunatic with a gun who wants to kill someone on a live feed or post video of his crime after the fact. But we must hold the NRA politicians accountable. They didn’t pull the trigger, but along with President Trump, who will soon bask in the frothing adulation of 80,000 NRA faithful at their convention later this month, they perpetuate the carnage. Parker’s daughter Alison was a Virginia television reporter shot to death on live TV in August 2015.