Voices for a Safer Tennessee
Voices for a Safer Tennessee is a nonpartisan statewide coalition dedicated to prioritizing gun safety and advocating for common sense gun laws to make communities across Tennessee safer for all of us.
“‘The goal is to form a four-mile chain of 13,000 people from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt through Centennial Park and up Charlotte Avenue to the State Capitol.‘
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Voices for a Safer Tennessee is organizing a second human chain event to mark one year since the Covenant School shooting in Nashville.
The group is a nonpartisan coalition prioritizing firearm safety which held an event in 2023 to honor The Covenant School.”
By Elliott Davenport, Jr. | March 7, 2024
“Growing up in Tennessee, I always looked forward to the month of September. It officially marked the end of summer and the return of the school year, but for me, the highlight of fall in Tennessee has always been the opening weekend of dove season.
My great uncle and aunt would send letters to the scattered branches of our family, inviting everyone to their north Georgia farm to hunt. Receiving my personal invitation felt like a rite of passage into adulthood.
It was also an invitation that came with responsibility. Our family’s safety on these hunts was always the priority, something I learned early from my father and in the hunter safety education course that we all take to secure our hunting license.”
Continue reading at Dresden Enterprise.
Elliott Davenport, Jr. is a lifelong hunter and Hamilton County, TN resident.
“Today we are courageously joined by Katy Dieckhaus, who lost her daughter Evelyn in the Covenant School Shooting in Nashville in 2023, and Annette Lake, who lost both her father Kenny and son Terrance to suicide by firearm less than a year apart in the early 2000s. They’re sharing their stories with you. We are also joined by Erin Rogus, who is walking with people like Katy and Annette to fight for change. Erin is the policy director for Voices For A Safer Tennessee, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide coalition dedicated to prioritizing firearm safety and advocating for common sense gun laws to make communities across Tennessee safer for all of us. Listening to stories like Katy’s and Annette’s is how we practice walking with people and not standing on issues. These women’s stories will change you— maybe not your opinion, and that’s okay—but they will change your heart if you let them.”
Listen on The Carlos Whittaker Podcast.
