Students and teachers who were affected by recent school shootings in Texas and Florida were honoured by Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards.

Award show host, singer Kelly Clarkson, a Texas native, could hardly speak when she opened the show with a tribute to the teacher and nine students who were shot to death at Santa Fe High School near Houston.

Clarkson said she had been asked to call for a moment of silence, but instead decided to call for a moment of action on gun laws.

She said she was sick of moments of silence, because it wasn’t working.

Clarkson was near tears when she said “Mommies and daddies should be able to send their kids to school.”

In a tribute to the 17 people killed in the Valentines Day shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Florida, the school’s show choir joined Khalid, and Pickering, Ontario’s Shawn Mendes for a performance of the song “Youth.”