A Republican state senate candidate has revealed that he killed his own mother more than 50 years ago.
Bobby Wilson, who is running to represent a district in Arizona, spoke at a forum for Moms Demand Action, a non-profit organisation that advocates gun control, in July.
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He told the crowd that he was "living proof" of a popular right-wing phrase - 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun'.
However he did not elaborate on the situation, which happened in 1963.
Mr Wilson, then 18, was in bed in his family's farmhouse in Oklahoma. His mother - who he says was "insane" - shot at him with a rifle, and he shot and killed her in self-defence. His sister also died that night, and the farmhouse was destroyed by a fire.
"I'm lucky to be alive, twice over," he told the Associated Press.
Mr Wilson was imprisoned after the deaths of his mother and sister, but his case was dismissed in the early 1970s, the Arizona Republic reports.
He wrote about the events of that night in his 2010 book Bobby's Trials, and his official website also mentions them. He has claimed to have suffered from amnesia and did not remember shooting his mother for many years after the event.
His comments at the gun control forum were met with boos, which he proudly posted about on Facebook afterwards.
Gabrielle Giffords, a former congresswoman who was shot in the head in a supermarket carpark in 2011, was reportedly in the audience, along with other survivors of gun violence.
Newshub.
