NASHVILLE, Tennessee, Feb 7 (Reuters) – A woman whose son was killed in a mass shooting at a Nashville restaurant in 2018 announced her run for a Tennessee state legislative seat on Wednesday, saying she would push for gun control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I am running for the other parents whose children didn’t come back home. For our children who deserve to be safe in schools, in stores, movie theaters, parks and restaurants,” Shaundelle Brooks, a former parole officer who lives in the Nashville area, told supporters gathered near the state capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brooks has been a gun control advocate since a gunman murdered her son, Akilah Dasilva, opens new tab<\/u><\/a>, and three other people at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last summer, another son, Abede Dasilva, survived being shot, apparently by a stray bullet. Abede DaSilva introduced his mother at her campaign kickoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among Brooks’ inspirations is Georgia gun control advocate Lucy McBath<\/u><\/a>, a former flight attendant who first won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McBath’s son, Jordan Davis, was killed when a white man fired at a vehicle carrying four teens in a Jacksonville gas station parking lot in November 2012. The gunman complained the teens were playing music too loudly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brooks, who like McBath is Black and a Democrat, told Reuters before her announcement that she had never before thought of running for office. At one point she wasn\u2019t even sure it was worthwhile to vote in a state where Republicans have held a supermajority of at least two-thirds of the seats in both houses of the state legislature since 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n