Families of the Covenant School shooting victims are plotting their next efforts to pass gun reform in Tennessee before the state legislature returns, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Covenant, a private Christian school in the wealthiest Nashville suburb, was forever changed when a shooter killed three 9‑year‑old children and three adults with an AR-15-style pistol in March. Parents and community members have since mobilized, pressing for some state-wide changes to gun laws.
That battle has pitted conservatives against conservatives, the New York Times report notes.
Among those fighting for gun control laws were "former Republican aides, gun owners and lifelong conservatives who could afford to spend days at the legislature," writes Emily Cochrane.
Yet, when they tried to meet with local lawmakers and beg for help, their campaign went ignored, according to the report.
When lawmakers stood up in their defense, the Republican speaker moved to expel three members of the General Assembly. Two of the three were thrown out by the GOP.The lawmakers' community swiftly put them back in office.
Meanwhile, the Assembly ignored the public outcry and dismissed any concerns.
The Times reports that at one point, Mary Joyce — whose daughter was a classmate of the three children killed — cried out in the Capitol rotunda that the shooter “hunted our children with a high-capacity rifle."
“I have held my composure. I have stayed calm," said Joyce, a moderate conservative, according to the report. "I have been silent and quiet and composed. And I am sick of it. Listen to me.”
The parents want Tennessee law that would have stopped the shooter, who was being treated for an emotional disorder, from legally purchasing his seven firearms, the Times reports.
"Even to several Covenant parents who owned guns, or once did, it was clear that preventing such situations was imperative," Cochrane writes.
"The next moment will come in January when the parents will return to the legislature. And maybe soon, their children will return to their school building on the hill, refurbished for a different start."