Mother cries after posting photo of three-year-old daughter practising mass shooting lockdown drill

'I am not pretending to have all the answers or even a shred of them, but unless you want your children standing on top of a toilet, we need to do something,' says mother Stacey Feeley

The little girl was taught to do this if a gunman attacked her pre-school while she was in the toilets (Stacey Wehrman Feeley/Facebook)

A mother has described how she broke down after taking a picture of her three-year-old daughter standing on a toilet ‒ only to discover that she was practicing for a lockdown drill in the event of a terrorist gun attack.

Stacey Feeley, from Traverse City in Michigan, posted the photograph on Facebook and said that at first she thought her daughter was "doing something cute".

Ms Feeley said that she then cried after her daughter explained she was taught to do this if a gunman entered her preschool while she was in the toilets.

She wrote in the post: "I took this picture because initially I thought it was funny. I was going to send it to my husband to show what our mischievous little three-year-old was up to.

"However, The moment she told me what she was doing I broke down. She was practicing for a lockdown drill at her preschool and what you should do if you are stuck in a bathroom.

"At that moment all innocence of what I thought my three-year-old possessed was gone."

Ms Feeley's post, which has been shared over 26,000 times, came just three days after the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the worst mass shooting in modern US history.

She added: "Politicians ‒ take a look. This is your child, your children, your grandchildren, your great grand children and future generations to come.

"They will live their lives and grow up in this world based on your decisions. They are barely 3 and they will hide in bathroom stalls standing on top of toilet seats.

"I do not know what will be harder for them? Trying to remain quiet for an extended amount of time or trying to keep their balance without letting a foot slip below the stall door?"

In addition to calling on politicians to pursue greater gun control, she called on "techies" to investigate inventing smart guns and even the NRA to do more.

Ms Feeley concluded: "I am not pretending to have all the answers or even a shred of them, but unless you want your children standing on top of a toilet, we need to do something!"

Following the Orlando mass shooting, the US Senate failed to pass new gun law restrictions including stronger buyer background checks and preventing people on the FBI's terror watch list.