NASHVILLE — Activists from throughout Tennessee expressed their support for — and opposition to — gun restrictions leading up to the special session that commenced Monday, Aug. 21. 

The Daily Memphian rode with representatives from organizations such as Planned Parenthood and Memphis For All on a bus from Memphis to Nashville. Once the bus landed in Nashville, the group met with representatives from other organizations, including the Equity Alliance and Moms Demand Action. 

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The coalition marched from Nashville First Baptist Church to Capitol Hill, chanting “Whose house? Our house,” and “Protect kids, not guns.”

Marchers stopped in front of the Capitol building, but because of the nearly 105-degree heat index, the rally was moved inside.

Other legislators, including state Reps. Karen Camper (D-Memphis), Torrey Harris (D-Memphis) and Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), joined advocates in the rally inside the Supreme Court Chamber, which occurred before state Rep. Justin J. Pearson’s swearing-in ceremony.

Pearson’s mother, Kimberly Owens-Pearson, said she is proud of her son for standing up to relaxed gun laws.

“What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong,” she said.

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Her comments prompted tears from a Memphis mother in the audience who lost her son to gun violence earlier this year.

Lavonda Thorn-Henderson lost her son Larry Thorn — who was a high school classmate of Pearson — to gun violence in January. He was killed at a church on Gold Avenue near the Hamilton neighborhood. The person responsible has not been caught.

“Today is very sentimental for me,” Thorn-Henderson said before the rally. “Very sentimental.”

Thorn-Henderson drove to Nashville from Memphis to see the start of the special session. She is hopeful some of the gun-safety laws will be passed during the special session. 

“We’ve got to start from somewhere,” Thorn-Henderson said. “We’ve got to come up with a better plan for these gun laws.”

‘We cannot continue to watch tragedies unfold’

At a press conference hosted by Moms Demand Action hours before the rally, Carol Frazier, a representative from the organization, said if lawmakers in Florida found a way to pass gun laws, those in Tennessee can do the same.

“We want our kids to return home from school safely every day,” Frazier said. 

She also said the special session “falls immensely short” and that a bill to arm teachers is “callous, irresponsible and dangerous.” 

Lawmakers have been “open to talking,” but they haven’t been listening, Frazier said.

Anna Caudill, a friend of Katherine Koonce, one of the victims of the Covenant School shooting that resulted in the deaths of three children and three adults, said a “well-regulated militia does not murder children.” 

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“It won’t end until Tennessee lawmakers value the sanctity of children’s lives,” Caudill said at the Moms Demand Action press conference.

Melissa Alexander, a former Memphian and a Covenant School parent, said Gov. Bill Lee’s extreme risk protection order bill “is not perfect, but it’s a good start.”

Alexander said she supports a bill that creates a voluntary do-not-sell list for people to put themselves on if they think they could pose a risk. 

She also supports a bill that makes minors’ autopsy reports confidential to protect the victims. The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government wrote this week that “autopsies have been used to clear suspects and identify new ones, as well as to show mistakes.”

Ashley Britt, Tennessee state director for the DC Project, an anti-gun control group, said firearms help women protect themselves from violence, and that gun-safety laws “make it difficult for citizens to defend themselves.”

“These policies are failures,” she said, “and they do not product the desired results.”