FAIRFAX, Va. — Three years after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, about 200 protesters lined the street in front of the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Fairfax County, demanding what they call “sensible gun reform.”
Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, whose congressional district the NRA headquarters resides in, said he had assumed substantive gun loopholes would have been removed in the years after the Connecticut school shooting. He wondered, “where’s the outrage?”
Connolly, a Democrat, says 90,000 Americans have been shot in the intervening three years — “more than our losses in the Vietnam War.”
“In Congress, we’ve arrived at the point where a moment of silence for the latest massacre is a weekly event,” said Connolly.
Andy Parker, father of murdered Roanoke journalist Alison Parker, who was shot during a live TV report, pointed at the NRA headquarters and said the people inside were “aiding and abetting terrorism.”
With his wife Barbara beside him, Parker said most NRA members would support closing loopholes, but their leadership is unyielding.
“Sadly to say, the people inside this building, they’re just businessmen. They don’t really care about you, or your family, or your community, or frankly, even their own members. All they want to do is sell guns,” he said.
