A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Millions of children this week are returning to class or are already back in the classroom for the new school year. In Nashville, students and teachers, for the first time, have been able to return to a school building where, almost a year and a half ago, a shooter used two assault-style rifles to unload 152 rounds. The gunfire killed three 9-year-old children and three adults, including the school's headmaster. The tragedy opened a debate over guns in one of the country's most conservative states. The new series from NPR's Embedded podcast, "Supermajority," has been following that debate, and Meribah Knight, a reporter at Nashville Public Radio, joins us now to talk about it. So over the last year, Meribah, you've come to know three Tennessee moms. Tell us about them.
MERIBAH KNIGHT, BYLINE: Yeah, Sarah Shoop Neumann, Melissa Alexander and Mary Joyce. Each grew up conservative, staunchly Republican, gun owners, but after this shooting - which, thankfully, all of their kids survived - they find themselves sort of transformed. Here's Sarah, then Melissa.
SARAH SHOOP NEUMANN: I have a hard time even describing what it was like to live that week.
MELISSA ALEXANDER: The realization came over me that we are now survivors of a mass shooting.
KNIGHT: And they wanted to do something, something they had never done before, which was to get political - to lobby their own party to pass gun control in Tennessee. Now here's Mary.
MARY JOYCE: Surely, they'll listen to us because we are your neighbors, and we are moms, and we are Christians.
MARTÍNEZ: So did they listen?
KNIGHT: The short answer is no. In the wake of the shooting, the state just erupts. Two Black lawmakers are expelled from the House. The Republican governor calls for a special legislative session on public safety, and the governor, as well as these moms, back some form of gun control, but most other Republicans don't. Ultimately, nothing substantial passes, and it was heartbreaking for the women. Here's Mary Joyce.
JOYCE: I was in shock that nothing happened. And I remember so clearly walking down the stairs, and people are shouting. And we're just trying to get out of there, and we're feeling - it feels so heavy, and it comes on really fast. And I walk down, and I hear these two gentlemen talking, arguing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Guns and gun deaths.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Here's the answer, OK? In 1962, you could buy a gun in the mail without a background check. We had no shootings. It's not the guns. It's the people.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: There were a lot fewer guns in the 1960s.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: So the people need to fix their minds.
JOYCE: I had enough, and I could not hold it in. And I remember crying, and I remember running up the hill on March 27, trying to get to my child and not being able to run fast enough. And I remember the hours spent in the church, waiting to hear if she was alive or dead. And I remember the police calling my friends' names over and over again in that church, and I knew - it's third grade. It's our class. I know why they're calling them. And I remember seeing my daughter's face the day after the shooting, telling her about all of her friends that had been murdered, and I remember seeing the life go out of her face. Her childhood left her body, and I couldn't hold it in, because it is enough. And I just started yelling.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOYCE: A handgun will never win against a high-capacity rifle. It will never win. It will never win.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: I will pray for you.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Pray for our communities, because we are killing each other.
JOYCE: It will never win. It would never have saved our children at Covenant.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Respect her. Respect her.
JOYCE: It would never have won.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: There is no gun...
JOYCE: A handgun...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: There is no...
JOYCE: ...Will never win against an assault rifle.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: If you're going to...
JOYCE: It will never win...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: You don't want to listen to me.
JOYCE: ...Against a high-capacity rifle.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Respect.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: You don't want to listen to me...
JOYCE: I do.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: ...And that's OK.
JOYCE: I've been listening all summer.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: OK, listen.
JOYCE: I've been listening all summer.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: There is not one piece of legislation that would...
JOYCE: If you come after my kids, or you come after a neighbor's kids, I will not stop. And I will scream at the mountaintops, and I will find a million other mothers like me or ones that want to prevent it happening to their children, and we will organize. And we are smart, and we are swift, and we are not going anywhere.
KNIGHT: And they didn't. They came back to the legislature for the regular session in January.
JOYCE: I did think, going into - naively into special session, that our time here would be done. And so now, we're coming back, and I would say we're much more prepared for what we're actually up against.
KNIGHT: And this time, they helped pass three laws, including a fire alarm bill that creates a better alert system in schools for detecting when there's an active shooter.
MARTÍNEZ: Any other gun safety laws passed?
KNIGHT: If you were to ask the Covenant moms, they would say no, quite the opposite. The only major legislation on this matter was a law that allows teachers to carry a concealed weapon in school. Here's some of Sarah Neumann's testimony against that kind of legislation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING
NEUMANN: Arming teachers is absolutely the wrong solution to the issue of school safety. Teachers in this state already lack support in terms of funding, poor pay, understaffing and so many other issues. Forcing them to carry firearms can only worsen the conditions in our school.
KNIGHT: And as of this moment, not a single school district has taken up this new law, although a couple say that they're thinking about it.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Meribah, where does this leave the moms you've been following?
KNIGHT: Well, they were serious when they said they weren't going anywhere. They're still advocating, but they've also evolved so much since they dove into this work, and they've become really self-aware about where they fit into this broader context of mass shooting survivors because, to be clear, Covenant was not the first in Tennessee. Recent years, we've seen shootings at a grocery store, outside a nightclub, at a church and at a Waffle House, where four victims died, all of whom were people of color. And here's Sarah Neumann talking about that.
NEUMANN: People have fairly asked me, well, what'd you do after the Waffle House shooting? Nothing is the answer, and that's really disappointing to me. It took this happening at my own child's school to look at what our laws were and see how things have changed.
KNIGHT: These political newcomers say they'll be back to challenge the next legislative session in January, and they will not back down.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Meribah Knight with Nashville Public Radio. Thank you very much.
KNIGHT: Thank you.
MARTÍNEZ: You can hear more of this story on "Supermajority," a special series from NPR's EMBEDDED podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
