Harmony Warfield's friends a family gathered at her old school Friday evening to remember the 7-year-old. Her accidental shooting death Monday was one of four across the state this year already.
Tragedies like Harmony's have happened in several communities across the state, and when they occur, it impacts everyone. Gun safety advocates said it's an incident that is 100 percent preventable.
Every year dozens of children have been injured or killed when they or another child are able to get their hands on loaded and unsecured firearms.
The Safe Tennessee Project has been tracking those numbers since January 2015. This year alone there have been 11 shootings involving children with access to firearms. Four of those were fatal. Since 2015, the number of children fatalities in Tennessee sits at 19. That's 19 young lives lost far too soon due to irresponsibly stored guns.
"It takes the firearm, it takes the person, it takes ammunition. If you take away any one of those three things then no one could get shot."
Lawmakers have tried to pass laws that would stiffen the penalty for adults who leave their firearms unattended. One such law, called MaKayla's Law, was voted down by the Judiciary Committee in March. Since then, however, there have been seven shootings involving children.
"Often times, the difference between an injury and death is centimeters," said Beth Joslin Roth with the Safe Tennessee Project.
In a previous interview about child gun safety, Nashville Armory Range Master Leroy Farris showed how easy it was to safely store a gun.
"It takes three things to have a firearm action. It takes the firearm, it takes the person, it takes ammunition. If you take away any one of those three things then no one could get shot," Farris said.
Earlier this week, the Metro Nashville Police Department released the identity of a man wanted for questioning after Harmony's death. They said investigators in the department's Youth Services have spoken to him by phone and the investigation was ongoing.
