Highland Park mother visiting Nashville makes emotional plea after deadly school shooting
How is this still happening? Highland Park mom reacts to Nashville school shooting
A woman who survived last summers mass shooting at a Fourth of July Parade in Highland Park pleaded for lawmakers to pass improved gun safety legislation after authorities announced three students and three staff members were shot to death Monday morning at a private elementary school in Nashville.
CHICAGO - A woman who survived last summer's mass shooting at a Fourth of July Parade in Highland Park pleaded for lawmakers to pass improved gun safety legislation after authorities announced three students and three staff members were shot to death Monday morning at a private elementary school in Nashville.
As a press conference held by Metro Nashville Police concluded Monday afternoon, Ashbey Beasley stepped up to the microphone and asked reporters, "aren't you guys tired of covering all these mass shootings?"
"I’m from Highland Park, Illinois," Beasley said. "My son and I survived a mass shooting over the summer."
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Beasley told reporters she and her family were in Nashville on a vacation to visit her sister-in-law when she learned of the shooting at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school for about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade.
Since the shooting in Highland Park last summer, Beasley said she's met with over 130 lawmakers in Washington D.C., lobbying for improved gun safety laws.
"How is this still happening? How are our children still dying and why are we failing them," Beasley asked.
"Gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens. It has overtaken cars. Assault weapons are contributing to the border crisis and fentanyl."
Beasley warned that if lawmakers don't "step up and pass gun safety legislation", mass shootings like Highland Park and Nashville will continue to happen.
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"We all have to call our lawmakers and we all have to make our lawmakers make change now, or this is going to keep happening, and it's going to be your kid, and your kid, and your kid, and your kid next. Because it's just a matter of time," Beasley said.
Authorities say they believe the 28-year-old female shooter who killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School on Monday was a former student.
The violence at the private Christian school in Nashville marks the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.
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The suspect — who was wielding two "assault-style" rifles and a pistol — also died after being shot by police. Authorities said she was from the Nashville area. Her motive in the attack has not been determined.
Her name has not been publicly released.