Moms Demand Action and 'gun sense' candidates come together at Capitol

A coalition of more than 50 candidates for State and U.S. office have applied for and received a "gun sense distinction" from Moms Demand Action.  

Candidates who fight for things like tougher background checks and 'red flag laws.'

Nicole Golden with Moms Demand Action says guns are becoming a voting issue for people.

"When they see shootings and they want something to be done they're going to look to these gun sense candidates and say this person wants to do something," Golden said.

UT freshman Selina Eshraghi lost a friend to a gun suicide last year.  

She helped organize the Austin March For Our Lives after the Parkland shooting.

When the Santa Fe massacre happened last week, she says she cried for hours. "We feel the emotions that we feel when we lost our loved ones all over again.  It makes it so hard to heal," she said.  

Eshraghi and Golden say there are no representatives from Austin March For Our Lives or Moms Demand Action on the Governor's round table. "Ultimately what's happening in Greg Abbott's round table discussions is a conversation about how to protect lives...our lives...and our voices aren't really there," Eshraghi said.  

Constitutional Conservative Torin Archbold is on the opposite side of the gun debate.  

He has a kid at Akins High School -- a school that went on lockdown in February after a threat of violence from a student. "It lets you know how vulnerable the schools are.  It lets you know how ineffective gun free zones are," Archbold said.  

Archbold says the school handled the situation well.  

But he says teachers with a license to carry should be able to carry.

"There's no law that you can put on the books or no right that you can take away that can prevent this.  The only thing you can do is protect the schools, you've got to harden the target," he said. 

One thing advocates for gun control and second amendment advocates seem to have in common? "Please lock up your guns.  Safe storage to prevent unsupervised child access saves lives," Golden said.

"You want to protect those things, it is your right to have them.  You want to protect that right and you want to protect others from the destruction that those guns could cause in the hands of the wrong person," Archbold said.  

Eshraghi says she does have a lot of hope for Governor Abbott's roundtable.

"I just hope that he will start to grow more open and listen to more open in listening to voices like the March For Our Lives Austin team," Eshraghi said.  

"I am hoping that law-abiding citizens are not penalized by the actions of fools and idiots, by murders and criminals.  That's what I hope," Archbold said.  

As far as securing schools, Moms Demand Action says the issue is bigger than just schools and if preventative measures are not taken in the legislature, lives won't be saved.