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“COLUMN: Math says gun safety reforms won’t happen without the GOP; two Republicans offer a window into why change might occur.

It was one of those phone calls where someone starts yelling before you even have a chance to say hello.

…The caller was a mom who had never been particularly political before the events of March 27, 2023, when a shooter killed six at the Covenant School. And her frustration was a familiar one. The legislature’s unwillingness to enact meaningful gun safety legislation, either in last year’s special session or the current regular session, has certainly not gone unnoticed. If you talked to participants in the human chain that connected Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to the Capitol on the massacre’s anniversary, you’d find gun control activists, to be sure. But you’d also find regular people, of all political stripes, frustrated and angry at the state’s leaders on the issue.”

Continue reading at Nashville Banner

“CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A Tennessee non-profit held an event on gun safety in Chattanooga Thursday evening, inviting healthcare providers to share their perspective on the topic.

This as one policy director asks lawmakers to adopt gun legislation that she argues will save lives, especially those of children.

The non-profit who held the event, Voices for a Safer Tennessee, says they want to create a safer environment for children, something they made clear Thursday night.”

Continue reading at News Channel 9.

By William H. Frist | April 3, 2024

“I encourage people who, like me, are impatient for change to look around, because something is happening.

A mass shooting. Children dead. Families and communities grieving. Then the cycle repeats. I get asked over and over again: Why do mass shootings not motivate lawmakers to act? Why does nothing happen?

I understand the frustration. I’m a gun owner and a strong Second Amendment supporter. I’m also a physician and a grandfather. We have reached a public-health crisis where firearms are now the No. 1 killer of kids in America. Shockingly, the rate of firearm fatalities among children under 18 increased 87 percent from 2011 to 2021. Had the problem been this large during my time in the U.S. Senate, where I represented Tennessee for 12 years and served as majority leader for four, it would have unquestionably influenced my vote on key firearm-related legislation. I want to see proven firearm-safety policies enacted that protect our children—which we can achieve while preserving our Second Amendment rights.”

Continue reading at The Atlantic.

William H. Frist is a heart- and lung-transplant surgeon and a former United States Senate majority leader who represented Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. He serves as the chair of the global board of the Nature Conservancy.

“Advocates for gun safety gathered to form a human chain in Tennessee to mark one year after an elementary school shooting that left six dead, including three children.

Thousands linked arms on Wednesday from the Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University to the Tennessee State Capitol, calling for gun law reform on the anniversary of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville.”

Watch video at BBC News.

“CNN — In Nashville, one year after a shooting at a private school took six lives, thousands will come together to honor victims of gun violence and provide a visible demonstration in support of reform.

About 13,000 people are expected to form a four-mile human chain Wednesday beginning at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt where some of the victims of the shooting were taken a year ago. It will lead to the state Capitol.

The non-profit Voices for a Safer Tennessee is organizing the event to honor the victims of The Covenant School shooting, including three 9-year-old children, and the hundreds of other lives lost to gun violence in the last year, a national crisis showing few signs of slowing down.”

Continue reading at CNN.