Tells crowd: "We can't stop now, we must continue to mount pressure on our elected officials"

Just two weeks after his daughter, Alison Parker, was shot and killed, Andy Parker urged Americans to do “whatever it takes” to end gun violence. Parker joined several hundred activists at a gun control rally near the U.S. Capital Thursday, hosted by the non-profit advocacy organization, Everytown for Gun Safety.

Parker told the crowd he was “still reeling” from last month’s fatal on-air shooting in Roanoke, Virginia, in which WDBJ-TV reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, were shot and killed on air. He was joined at the rally by Alison’s boyfriend, WDBJ anchor Chris Hurst, as well as lawmakers, gun violence survivors and family members of gun violence victims, in calling for Congress to support background checks for every gun sold.

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“We can’t stop now, we must continue to mount pressure on our elected officials here in Washington and at home in your home state,” Parker said, according to a WDBJ report.

“The majority of Americans agree with common-sense reforms. But too many of Congress remain in the pocket of the gun lobby. That has got to change.”

Parker described his daughter to PEOPLE last week as “a force of nature. She was remarkable at literally everything she did.”

Lucy McBath, mother of Jordan Davis, a Florida teen who was shot and killed at a gas station after a dispute over loud music, told PEOPLE yesterday: “We are here to shout at the top of the rooftops that we’re no longer going to allow lawmakers to do nothing about the rampant gun violence in our communities. It’s too late for my son but I’ll do whatever it takes to help as many people as I can to understand that we’re not statistics or numbers.”

Describing gun violence in America as “an epidemic,” Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe – who was joined by Virginia senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine – said that he is “sick of consoling mothers who are burying their children on a weekly basis.”

Others who spoke included Sharon Risher, who lost her daughter and two cousins to the June shooting at the Charleston, S.C., Emanuel AME church; Richard Martinez,father of UC Santa Barbara shooting victim Christopher Michaels-Martinez; Colin Goddard, who was shot four times in the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.

Erica Lafferty, daughter of Sandy Hook principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, limped around the crowd on crutches after recent hip surgery. Lafferty, who serves as the senior outreach associate for Everytown for Gun Safety, told PEOPLE that she’s working to build a community among survivors, which is “heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.” Lafferty says her mom, who was killed in the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, “would scream Andy Parker’s rally cry and say, ‘Do whatever it takes!’ It’s about everybody else and all the lives you can save. I know this is exactly what she would want.”