Dad of Murdered Reporter is Running for Congress

Seven years after a gunman killed his daughter during a live TV news broadcast, longtime Virginia gun-control advocate Andy Parker has decided to run for Congress.

His daughter, Alison Parker, and Photographer Adam Ward were going live for WDBJ (Roanoke) when they were shot and killed by a former station employee.

Andy Parker says that he will seek the Democratic nomination in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District.

Parker said that fighting gun violence, though still important to him, is not the focal point of his congressional campaign. Over the past few years, Parker has been battling YouTube and other social-media platforms as he looks to remove videos of his daughter’s death.

He said he hoped taking on Big Tech and amending Section 230 — a provision in the Communications Decency Act that has largely shielded social media platforms from accountability if the content posted on their sites causes harm.

“My priority for running in this race is putting a stop to the abuse of social media,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “I don’t want people to go through the same thing I went through. I tried working this effort as a private citizen, and I think if I could do it as a member of Congress, even though I’d be one of 400-plus members, I’d have a better chance of getting something done.”

H/T MSN