FRANKFORT, Ky. — Tyree Smith was shot and killed at a school bus stop in Louisville in 2021.
On Thursday, his mother, Sherita Smith stood in the Capitol Building in Frankfort advocating alongside Moms Demand Action for the CARR bill.
"I called. I did everything I could to let everyone know this bus stop isn't safe for these kids," she said. "It was just the worst thing that I could imagine."
With her son gone, Smith is still pushing for change along with other moms.
"We gotta end this. I'm so tired of every time I look at the news, I'm seeing another mother crying. I'm seeing another father out here just losing their kid," she said.
The group, over a hundred in red shirts, share a heartbreaking trauma with Smith. They came to the Capitol with their own stories. Their own names of loved ones lost.
"I lost my son Jermaine Birch," Cheryl Birch said at the podium, one of ten to share their pain. "I think that sometimes that people who haven't been through it think there's a funeral, there's a burial, and it's over. And it's not. And especially when you don't get justice."
With bipartisan support for the crisis aversion bill, and a sea of red joining in applause, it's just the beginning for some activists here like Kamal Wells. His group, Men Against Gun Violence, continues to offer emotional support for students at bus stops in the wake of Tyree Smith's death.
In conversations with other activists, he hoped to see legislation regulating gun registration.
"That way if there's any type of mental behaviors that need to be addressed that may have changed in a year, you can address them," he said.
But before that, they still want the CARR bill to pass. It'll need to overcome GOP concerns over Second Amendment rights to do so. The legislation's failed before in the past.
The bill, introduced at the end of January, is still waiting to be sent to a committee before it can be heard on the Senate floor. If it passes out of the committee, it will still need to be heard in the full Senate before going onto the House of Representatives.
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