Mary Joyce of Nashville, Tennessee, is one of them.
Her daughter was in the Covenant School classroom where three of her 9-year-old classmates were killed in a mass shooting last March that also took the lives of three staff members.
She and other Covenant School moms say steep hurdles remain in the fight for gun safety laws in their state.
"It feels like we're just screaming under water and no one can hear us."
Last August, Joyce spoke to lawmakers during a special session dedicated to public safety, hoping her testimony would move them to act.
"These children need to be remembered like this. This was Friday before the shooting at the school talent show. Please do not let this memory, this beautiful image, be tainted by a violent act."
But the special session ended with no progress on gun safety laws.
"We really believed going in that this would be impactful enough and that it was worth the emotions to go and tell that story in order to make something happen."
Republicans who overwhelmingly control the state legislature oppose anything seen as a retreat from the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."
Sarah Shoop Neuman, whose son attends the Covenant School, says gun lobbyists and the hard-line Republican base have paralyzed legislators.
"They don't feel like they can speak out against it without having some of those key players to also deal with. Or they think they're going to lose their seat. Or different associations are threatening to primary them in the next election. So it makes it more difficult."
Covenant School mom Melissa Alexander said the super-majority Republicans hold in the legislature does not always connect with its constituents.
"Tennessee is obviously a red state. But I think a lot of the red voters are more middle-of-the-road voters and not far-right leaning voters. And so it does feel like the messaging is not getting up into the legislature from their constituents."
Last year's protests at the state capitol following the Covenant School shooting resulted in the temporary expulsion of two Black Democratic representatives, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones.
JONES: "...there is no democracy in Tennessee."
Their expulsion led to accusations of racism, after a third Democratic representative, who is white, was not expelled for her role in the protest.
Both have since been reinstated and they have vowed to continue to push for change in the next legislative session, which opens in mid-January.
