INDIANAPOLIS — Gun safety advocates want lawmakers to rethink a bill that never made it out of committee in the first half of the legislative session.
They came to the Statehouse on Thursday morning to voice their concerns.
"When you walk into those houses, the gore, the screams, the cries — they're unimaginable," Lisette Guillen said.
She remembers every one, every home she's been to after a child was shot.
The faces of some of those children were on a sign that Guillen, with Case Files Chicago and other gun safety advocates, held up Thursday morning outside the Statehouse.
"This is where the laws that are supposed to protect the citizens of Indiana, Hoosiers that includes our children, are made in this building," Guillen said.
And those laws are exactly why Guillen and fellow advocates said they were there, after House Bill 1318, that would have offered a tax credit to Hoosiers who buy a device to secure a gun, never even got a committee hearing.
It wasn't the only one.
Under House Bill 1325, a person could have been charged with felony neglect of a dependent if a child got ahold of an unsecured gun and hurt or killed someone.
That bill also never got heard in committee.
Several Senate bills dealing with gun safety regulations met the same end.
One of them, Senate Bill 66, would require a gun store to display a sign about the safety risks to children posed by guns that aren't locked up.
"There were other bills that made it through OK that weren't as important. I say they aren't as important because even though they are important in their own right, nothing is as important as a child's life," Guillen said.
A previous law that was enacted requires the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Police, starting this year, to hand out materials on safe gun storage.
According to statistics compiled by Every Town, a nonprofit advocating for education on gun violence and prevention, last year, Indiana had 26 unintentional shootings involving children.
In nine of those cases, a child died.
According to Every Town, shootings are the leading cause of death in children and teens in Indiana.
"We're losing our children," said Andrew Holmes, with Lock It Down, a nonprofit that advocates for locks to secure guns.
That's why Holmes and Guillen say they'll be back to pass out gun locks in Indianapolis, after they say they've already passed out thousands in the northern part of the state.
"We need the help of these lawmakers walking into this building every single day," Guillen said.
It's a building, children can walk into every day too, children, gun safety advocates like Guillen and Holmes say, they don't want to become another gun death statistic.
"That could be your child. Don't think it can't happen to you," Guillen said.