(Newser) – A Republican Arizona state Senate candidate has shocked gun control advocates by sharing details about shooting and killing his mother in apparent self-defense more than 50 years ago. Bobby Wilson, who is running to represent a southern Arizona district, tells the AP that he's not trying to hide anything. He says his mother was "insane" and shot at him with a rifle when he was in bed in their Oklahoma farmhouse one night in 1963. He then shot and killed her. Wilson's sister also died that night, and the house caught on fire. "I'm lucky to be alive, twice over," says Wilson, who wrote about these events in his 2010 book, Bobby's Trials, and also mentions them in his website biography.

At a Moms Demand Action forum in Tucson earlier this month. Wilson told the crowd he was "living proof" that the only one who can stop someone trying to harm somebody is a "good guy with a gun." Wilson is running for a seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Andrea Dalessandro. He's in a primary running against Republican Shelley Kais. The Arizona Republic reported Monday that Wilson was imprisoned after the deaths were discovered. After two trials, the court eventually dismissed his case in the early 1970s. Newspaper accounts at the time of the shooting gave conflicting details about how Wilson's sister died and other elements of that night. Wilson says he never confessed to anything at the time because he had amnesia and didn't remember what happened for many years.

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