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Parents of mass shooting victims have turned to artificial intelligence (AI) to recreate the voices of their children as they assembled at Centennial Park in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 18.
The gathering at Nashville was the third stop of this year’s 15-city, 13-state “Shotline” bus tour organized by parents advocating to raise awareness and end gun violence in the United States.
One of the advocates is Patricia Oliver, mother of 17-year-old Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, who was killed during the 2018 Parkland school shooting that took place in Florida.
“If you use it, you can understand better, and you can click with your emotions and feel the fact that you need to do something after you listen to those voices. We are committed to keep talking and keep saying and keep sending the message all over the world, all over the country, because we are dedicated to this for life,” Oliver said.
Likewise, Brett Cross traveled from Texas to Nashville to talk about his son, Uziyah Garcia, who perished in the Uvalde school shooting at only ten years old.
“I need the world to know who he was. I need them to know that he loved Spider-Man, that he loved basketball, that he loved Pokémon…We encourage people to fight right now before it happens to them because I guarantee you, the hardest thing in the world is going on after you lose a child,” Cross said.
The recordings of the voices are available on the Shotline website, which also contains data on the number of mass shootings and gun violence deaths in 2023. The voices can be forwarded to local and state legislators. As of August 20, 2024, over 150,000 calls have been submitted to the representatives.
With this movement, the parents are also pushing for changes in law. Shaundelle Brooks, the Democratic nominee for Tennessee House District 60, expressed her hope that her son’s voice would help promote gun legislation.
“The recreation of his voice, it was hard, it was hard, but I knew that Akilah spoke against violence, he spoke against guns,” Brooks said, remembering Akilah DaSilva, who was a victim of the Antioch Waffle House shooting in 2018.
Besides overturning Tennessee’s policy that allows teachers to carry guns in schools, Brooks is calling on “red flag” laws, which are also called “extreme risk protection” laws,
“Red Flag laws like when someone is experiencing some kind of mental breakdown, their family members can intervene and call in the necessary people to make sure that their weapons are temporarily taken until the situation is resolved, and that is ok. When things like that happen, and laws like that are put in place, situations like mine, why my son is not here, could have been avoided,” she explained.
Elaine Eisinger also rallied behind improved mental health resources for victims. After surviving the Covenant School mass shooting in 2023, Eisinger’s daughter is struggling with panic attacks.
“I would just love to see more action around the mental health piece, around ensuring there are background checks on private gun sales, doing away with permitless carry. There’s just some very basic, if you’re asking me, common sense things we can do that don’t infringe on anyone’s Second Amendment right that can just ensure more safety in our community,” she stated.
