NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The pain Shaundelle Brooks feels was still fresh as she spoke of her son at the downtown Presbyterian Church Wednesday morning.

“Gun violence is personal to me,” she said. “It hit home. It hit my heart and upturned my world.”

Her son Akilah Dasilva was one of four people shot and killed at a Nashville Waffle House back in 2018.

Five years later, Brooks is now one of many volunteers with Tennessee Moms Demand Action rallying for more gun safety measures from lawmakers.

But these aren’t the only parents in Tennessee worried about gun violence.

“I love children,” said Kelsey Gastineau. “I knew that I would be taking care of asthma, diabetes, but did not realize I would be taking care of children with firearm injuries.”

Gastineau is a pediatrician and clinical instructor at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt who helped gather data for Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s child health poll.

“This is actually the first year that we added gun safety questions,” she said.

More than 1,000 parents said school-based gun violence was one of their top five concerns in this poll.

“One in four of the parents polled said that this is a major concern,” said Gastineau.

Data from the poll showed 83% of parents said schools would be safer with one or more school resource officers working in the school.

Seventy-one percent said active shooter drills should be conducted routinely and background checks should be expanded to all gun sales.

Nearly 70% of parents also said they would want students, staff and visitors to go through a metal detector prior to entering schools.

“Anytime you really get the data it’s so important, and so I think actually putting data to the theories that we have is so important and so powerful,” said Gastineau.

The poll broke down other safety measures as well, but only 35% of parents said they agreed schools would be safer if teachers were armed.

“We have divisions by west, middle, and east, and we have differences by race,” said Gastineau. “We have differences by age.”

For many at Wednesday’s Mom’s Demand Action rally, gun violence is indeed personal.

But being able to voice their concerns is something Gastineau says they want to continue elevating with this research.

“At the end of the day the most important thing is that Tennessee parents have a voice at the table,” she said.

The four other concerns parents stated from this poll were education and school quality, child mental health and suicide, bullying and cyberbullying, and drug and alcohol use.