ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Recent threats and close calls in schools across Albuquerque have all of them on high alert. 

KOB 4 met with a member of the Moms Demand Action group about recent incidents, and how to talk to your own family about them. 

Cheryl Haase has been teaching in classrooms since 1984.

“We didn’t have lockdown drills. We didn’t have this fear of a shooter coming in. So, really, as a society, we need to decide, how are we going to keep our children safe?” said Cheryl Haase, a volunteer communications lead for Moms Demand Action New Mexico Chapter. 

She’s asking that question more often than she’d like these days. She’s a teacher at Grant Middle School, and says a recent threat at Sandia High School hit too close to home. 

Sandia went into a shelter-in-place after someone found bullets in a school bathroom. 

“My middle school, feeds into that school. People that teach with me have children that go to that school and so that was really frightening,” said Haase. “Every instance of somebody bringing a gun into a school, or even worse, when somebody, you know, when there is actual gun violence, it traumatizes the entire community.”

Haase joined the national Moms Demand Action Group in 2012 shortly after the Sandy Hook School shooting. It fights for public safety measures to protect people from gun violence. She says that fight has only gotten harder. 

“Why should we put our kids through that as a society? We need to decide something needs to be done. We have to pass more laws and keep our kids safe, because this should not be a concern of our children and our parents,” Haase said.

She believes one of New Mexico’s most important laws on the books is Bennie’s Law. It holds gun owners responsible if a child gets access to their gun, and uses it to commit a crime.

Safe storage at your home, and your kids’ friends’ homes, is part of moms demand action’s Be SMART campaign.

“It’s important to ask, ‘Do you have guns, and how do you store them?’ And that can be kind of an uncomfortable conversation, but we like to sort of equate it with like, if your child has an allergy, do you have, you know, please don’t serve peanuts,” said Haase. 

Haase says it can’t just be a school issue, it has to be a society issue.

“It’s not car accidents, it’s not any kind of illness. The number one killer of children is guns,” said Haase.