For Alison: The Murder of a Young Journalist and a Father's Fight for Gun Safety

Let me begin this review with a little bit of my own story. I live in a city less than an hour from where Alison Parker was shot. I remember very clearly that day. I was on my way to work and my husband called to see if I heard anything about a reporter being shot on TV. I hadn't, but as soon as I got to work, I checked it out. I figured he was referring to a reporter in some other part of the country; I was stunned when I saw it happened locally. By that point, it was still a new story, so very few details were available. I checked throughout the morning and saw the actual event posted on numerous sites. Later on, they released the name of the alleged shooter, so I followed that part of the story as well. I saw a number of posts on Facebook of the shooter's go-pro video. It's amazing how fast this story spread on social media, footage and all. I also worked at a new station years ago, so I began to think about how this would have played out at the station in the control room. Needless to say, I was very affected by this event and thought about it a lot for days and weeks after.Andy Parker's book provides the background that was missing from those days. So much surrounded the shooting, it was great to read more about Alison, as well as her family and Chris Hurst. I got to see her rise in journalism. I didn't watch WDBJ7 much at the time, as I watched the ABC or NBC affiliates at the time. I was able to find some of her old reports on youtube, and she really was a very talented reporter. Sometimes after someone passes, others will build them up to be more than they were as a way to make themselves feel better (think the cliches "Never knew a stranger/Everybody was her friend/Lit up the room with her smile"). However, I think Andy did a fair job portraying Alison in this book. He praised her as a father, but didn't hide her faults. Also, after watching her reports myself, I don't think he or others exaggerated by giving her the "It" factor. So I appreciated this aspect of the book a lot.Another thing I was mesmerized by were Parker's raw expressions of grief. He didn't hold back in his book and told the reader the good, the bad, and the ugly about how he coped and has been coping since. There are moments where he obviously reacted badly, but he doesn't try to justify it. He just tells it like it is and admits in hindsight when he was wrong or any regrets he has. Again, this is refreshing and honest. Anybody could have the same reactions he did, especially given his circumstances and what he was faced with. He also had to deal with grieving in public, something many of us aren't familiar with. Any of the chapters dealing with his emotional responses to his daughter's death and heartbreaking, yet riveting and well-spoken.About half the book is dedicated to his daughter and his experience with grieving for his daughter. But the other half is dedicated to his anti-gun violence activism. Let me preface this by saying, I actually agree with a number of things he says. I think some of the laws and actions he proposes are not bad ideas. I've long since thought that gun rights and gun control are not mutually exclusive. It isn't like a gun law will take away all gun rights from gun owners, and it's not like people owning guns is just inviting gun violence. There is a balance, a commonsense approach, that can be taken where both sides can feel they are heard and protected.Where I think Andy Parker is a bit wrong is in his generalizations of people. He is very clearly and unapologetically a Democrat, which is fine in theory, but he comes across incredibly close-minded at times. If one disagrees with him, he will state they are ignorant, idiotic, NRA-controlled morons who couldn't possibly have thought through their positions. I don't agree with everything Parker says, but I wouldn't say that makes me stupid. Reasonable minds can differ, but Parker doesn't seem to take that approach when it comes to gun control. I think he might be more successful (and pretty much the entire gun control movement) if they took a less judgmental tone towards anyone who holds a different position. By the way, I think gun rights activists should also be less judgmental toward the gun control movement. There has to be a middle ground here. Where Parker complains about the gun nuts and extremists, he comes across as an extremist in the opposite direction.I get it: he's angry, and justifiably so. But he also seems to be stuck in this very bitter mindset. His life has become dictated by his anger, which I can't imagine his daughter would want. I don't know her, so it's ballsy of me to say anything in that regard, but from everything Parker wrote, she isn't the type to want her father to be consumed by anger or bitterness. In a sad twist of irony, the shooter of his daughter was so consumed by his own anger and bitterness, which conceivably led to his crime and eventual suicide. I don't think Parker is going in that direction by any means, but we can see where living a life shrouded in being pissed off at the world can lead to an even worse situation.The reason Parker's activism is so baffling is because the laws he proposes and the activism he takes are not related to his daughter's death. Certainly that may have spurned him to do something, but his daughter's death would not be prevented by anything he has stated. The shooter passed a background check, used a handgun to shoot, and was not someone who would have raised red flags two years after leaving the station. Even if he left under bad terms, it wouldn't be foreseeable to assume someone would come back two years later to exact revenge on someone who wasn't even clearly his problem when he worked there.So while Parker spends a lot of time discussing his gun activism, he doesn't clearly link it to the shooting that took his daughter. And he has said that he understands his proposals possibly wouldn't have prevented anything. And that's why there are two stories here: one for Alison, one for his personal gun control activism. Her shooting may have thrust him in that direction, but if he honestly has no intention to take away all guns, then her shooting was just a terrible event that was not foreseeable nor preventable. This makes the book very jarring and inconsistent. One chapter is sweet about Alison, the next is angry about lawmakers who couldn't have prevented this shooting even if they wanted to. I would have liked to see Parker split this into either two books entirely, or at least one half dedicated to his daughter and one to his activism (literally split in the middle, not bouncing between the two).Because of how it was written, and because Parker comes across as a sympathetic figure on one hand but an embittered and close-minded activist on the other, I couldn't give this more than 3 stars. Again, I appreciated his candor and honesty, and I did like a lot about the book. But the chapters that focused on how stupid Republicans are and how anyone who disagrees with him is an NRA-nutjob were just too intolerant and narrow-minded for me to accept. Republicans aren't going to listen to anything he says if he labels them ignorant for disagreeing with him. Parker experienced something terrible, something he wouldn't wish on anyone. But that doesn't mean he is the only voice of reason in this and he needs to recognize that if he wants others to listen.

It took me awhile to start this book as I looked upon it the same as like watching 'Schindler's List'. A must to do as a human, but something I was not looking forward to doing. I want to say, it is not like this at all. It is an insight to Mr. Parker's thoughts on guns, NRA, Virginia politics, our current administration, religion, all of which I can't agree with more. But it is also a celebration of Alison's life. She was intelligent, loved her family with a passion and loved life. What a tragedy that the world lost her talent to preventable gun violence. I cannot applaud Mr. Parker more for the guts it took for him to write it. I want to thank him for all he, his wife Barbara and Chris Hurst (fiancé), do in raising awareness for the stupid gun laws we have in this country. It should be required reading by all Americans. "Whatever it Takes!"

Losing a child would be heartbreaking. Losing a child to violence is horrendous, but having your child murdered on live TV and knowing that videos of her death are there to view at the click of a mouse is both heartbreaking and unimaginable.Andy and Barbara Parker know that heartbreak and deal with it every single day. For Alison tells the story of what it feels like to lose a child to preventable gun violence. It is the story of a father’s fight for gun reform to keep guns from mentally unstable people. This book tells the story of a rising star in television whose life was ended tragically, along with her friend and photographer Adam Ward.This book is also about “the club no one wants to join.” Unfortunately, since Alison’s death, hundreds more have been murdered and more families have joined this club.Parker talks also about events he’ll never experience, such as walking Alison down the aisle and seeing her happily married. Parker is honest and often blunt, but he is definitely a man with a mission to protect others from the loss and pain that he and Barbara live with daily.The first 3 chapters are a hard read. I had to take breaks because I couldn’t read through my tears. It’s important to note that this is not a book about taking away everyone’s guns. It’s about his daughter, his life, and his platform: gun reform—keeping guns away from unstable people.

Andy,What blows my mind about your book is that you manage to capture the horror of Alison’s death while keeping her magic intact. You gave the world a peek into the life of an inspiring young woman so many people fell in love with at first sight. You allowed us to see the soul behind the smile that lit up not only my mornings but the mornings of thousands of people in the Roanoke Valley. Choosing to share Alison with us, choosing to let us catch just a glimpse of a young woman who America, not just the Roanoke Valley, would have fallen in love in the future as they got their daily dose of the national news, and choosing to share your raw rage and grief---all of it is a gift to the world just like Alison. Through your book, America will still fall in love with Alison because her dad faced the darkness so that she could live on through the actions of everyone who is inspired to take an action towards sensible gun control after reading your story.Words matter.Yours will change the world.Thank you.#whateverittakesP.S- you and Barbara Bailey Parker really are the coolest parents ever. You've inspired me to up my game!