MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Protestors aren't the only ones who want the Tennessee State Legislature to take action against gun violence — there are Memphis parents who have reason to feel the same.
Shelby County Board of Commissioners chairman Mickell Lowery has scheduled a special meeting to reappoint Representative Justin Pearson to the District 86 seat, but, in the meantime, those impacted by gun violence are speaking out as well.
Oct. 17, 2022 at 8:17 a.m. is grained into Vanessa Terry’s mind. It is the time she got a call from her grandson that her daughter was shot. Months later, with no arrests, Terry is not only calling for answers.
She wants change.
"It was hard for me driving over this morning — I had anxiety just to come back here knowing that she was taken in this same area — it’s hard," said Vanessa Terry, Vanity Macklin’s mother. "I haven’t been here since that night."
Macklin was driving down Mill Branch Road in Whitehaven when someone fired three gunshots.
"One struck her while she was in the car with her boys," Terry said. "Her car hit this pole — here at the light. The baby boy — Trenton — his mom fell over on him. That is something that a child will never forget."
It is a memory no one should have to relive, and a wound no one should have to bear.
"Now they’re left without their mom to pick up pieces of a tragedy that they’ll never forget," Terry said. "That hurts."
Thousands have felt this pain leading three Tennessee legislators to protest gun violence on the House floor. Terry stands with Memphis’ Rep. Justin Pearson of District 86 and Nashville’s Justin Jones who were expelled for protesting.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Bureau traced roughly 25,000 guns to Memphis from 2017 to 2021. That is the 5th highest in all U.S. cities.
Terry said current laws are harmful enough.
"You all have allowed people to not even have to have gun licenses anymore," she said. "That to me, you’re asking for trouble. You’re opening a can of worms and they’re going to everywhere. My daughter was a licensed carrier. What really frustrates me is the coward that night who never gave my daughter a chance to defend her and her boys."
Now, five months later, Terry said there has been no update in her daughter’s murder.
"Vanity was the most loving person," she said. "She was tiny in body build in her fracture, but her heart was large. The person that did this, I want them caught. I want them caught."
Terry has been posting flyers on nearby businesses where her daughter was killed in hopes that anyone with information will contact Memphis police.