In August 2015, 24-year-old journalist Alison Parker was doing a routine morning news segment when she and her cameraman were gunned down on live TV by a former colleague, who later shot himself. That tragedy was a turning point for Chris Hurst, Parker's colleague and boyfriend of nine months. Within a year, he had resigned from his job and announced his intention to run for state office against a Republican opponent endorsed by the NRA.
Hurst did not run on a stringent anti-gun platform, however.
"I have no intention of trying to ban or prohibit any type of class of weapon," Hurst said in a radio interview. "I would never want to legislate someone's culture or their way of life. But I do think that there is work that we could do through a gun violence protective order to reasonably — for a set amount of time — remove a gun from a dangerous situation. Nobody just snaps. There's always something that is occurring — a pattern."The Guardian reports that Hurst is "skeptical of some of the culture war policies that Clinton and other gun control advocates have embraced, such as bans on popular military-style 'assault weapons.'"
Chris Hurst, a former television anchor whose girlfriend was killed in a shooting that occurred on-air, won an elec… https://t.co/juB0xrWyij— Kamala Harris (@Kamala Harris)1510159712.0
Hurst is adamant that he does not want to take guns away from people - only to introduce commonsense gun control.
"We have a lot of work to do to cut out the BS when it comes to gun violence prevention," Hurst said in an interview with the Guardian.“What I care about most is trying to reduce the number of people who die with a gun, whether it’s homicide or suicide. The last thing I would want to do is to try to change someone’s culture or their way of life."Hurst also ran on other policies such as health and childcare.
There are loud cheers here from Chris Hurst supporters as Northam's projected victory is announced. https://t.co/nIbOlQ7IhG— Tommy Lopez (@Tommy Lopez)1510103764.0
On Tuesday, Hurst beat Joseph Yost, the three-term incumbent for a seat in the 12th District of Virginia's House of Delegates.
House of Delegates 12th District (20%) (D) Chris Hurst 54% (R) Joseph Yost 45%— WDBJ7 (@WDBJ7)1510102562.0