SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Last week’s school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee left six dead, including children. It’s an impact felt nationwide.
KELOLAND news spoke with a mom about her experience with the Harrisburg shooting and the work she and others are doing to try and end school shootings in the US.
The school shooting at Harrisburg High School happened in 2015, but Emily Thomas remembers it like it was yesterday.
“I remember I was in my car, and I was driving. I didn’t really understand what was happening right away. But then when I finally learned, it’s just like, my whole insides just dropped,” said Emily Thomas, volunteer with Moms Demand Action.
Thomas’s son, Aiden was a freshman at the time. He spent that day in lockdown.
“It was the most helpless feeling in the world,” Thomas said.
Thomas says it was that event which led her to join Moms Demand Action. She says school shootings cannot become normalized.
“It doesn’t just affect the family, it affects the students, it affects the community, it affects everybody. You don’t just get over something like this,” Thomas said.
Which is why Thomas and others are working to end gun violence.
“After Uvalde, I realized that I could no longer just get mad every time there’s a shooting,” said Laura Cruse, volunteer with MDA.
Laura Cruse is an English professor in Sioux Falls and one of the newest members of the organization
“I said, That’s it. I cannot just sit, not anymore. I don’t know what I can do. But there are people organizing who know a lot more about this than I do, and they know something I can do,” Cruse said.
Following the recent shooting in Nashville, both Cruse and Thomas say this conversation needs to continue.
“There’s just a lot that we can do. On our end, to really stand up to it and change things. This does not have to be normal,” Thomas said.
Moms Demand Action was formed by Shannon Watts after the Sandy Hook shooting. Since then the group has worked to pass gun legislation for safer gun laws. You can find a link to their website here.
