The Patriot Post® · Tennessee Gun Control Confab Concludes — 2A Rights Not Infringed
Ahead of the just-concluded special session of the Tennessee General Assembly errantly called by Republican Governor Bill Lee to discuss what leftists call “gun reform” in response to “gun violence,” I outlined how Democrats use the coffins of murdered children as political fodder to advance their political agendas.
“Gun reform” is a euphemism for “gun control,” which is about gun confiscation and always has been. “Gun violence” is a euphemism for “cultural violence,” which is the actual problem, but Demos don’t want to touch that.
The good news is that this special session closed with more awareness about the safety of children and no infringement on the constitutional rights of Tennesseans. However, this political charade is a case study of leftist tactics, and conservatives in every Republican-controlled legislature across the nation should take note.
Governor Lee is a strong conservative, but in the wake of a gender-confused assailant’s attack on a Nashville Christian school in March, where she murdered six people, including three children, Lee got blindsided and carelessly set up Republican majorities in the House and Senate for a Democrat blitzkrieg.
A week after that attack, Joe Biden hosted three Tennessee legislators to elevate the visibility of their political agenda in Tennessee.
For the record, attacks on schools are very rare — more than 99% of ALL murder victims are NOT killed in so-called “mass shooting” incidents in a school or any other location. But as long as sociopathic assailants have been murdering children, Democrats have been propping up the coffins of the dead as political soapboxes for promoting gun control. They are especially quick to do so when the victims are white, knowing they can invoke a strong response from their cadres of emotionally incontinent supporters — particularly their wealthy, white privilege Demo benefactors in the suburbs.
I note that Demos are quick to use murdered white children for their agenda despite the politically inconvenient truth that a grossly disproportionate number of murder victims nationwide are black men, women, and children, and almost all of their assailants are black. It is no small irony, then, that the two loudest legislative protesters were black.
We should have reasoned conversations about how to protect children. That includes all Americans, particularly our black brothers and sisters whom national Demos never mention because that discussion would quickly lead to the underlying cultural issues and the generations of leftist social policies that have created those issues.
Demos knew their proposals would get nowhere in the special session, but their intent was to create a public relations cluster setting up conservative legislators for election opposition based on their votes. But using the coffins of murdered children is a very crass and calculated strategy to co-opt emotions.
For a well-informed perspective on the legislative session, I turned to a highly esteemed Republican legislative analyst for his assessment. He responded as follows:
“Bad facts make bad law” is an unfortunate reality that has created many overreaching laws and bad court decisions. Such is the case with a horrible mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee on March 27, 2023. The facts of this case show that there was no indication or warning that this particular person would instigate such a horrific crime.
That notwithstanding, Governor Lee proposed new “red flag” laws that would permit judges to remove private citizens’ guns immediately upon evidence that a person “could be dangerous.” The defendant could show up at a hearing at a later time and try to regain their constitutional right to possess a firearm.
Hundreds of protesters at the Tennessee Capitol wanted gun control legislation — notably many of them were from out of state. The Republican leadership was not prepared for the protests, particularly the small number of protesters who were conservative Christians associated with The Covenant School. To their credit, the House leadership had no intention of passing a gun control measures. But the House leadership proceeded to file two dozen bills that would expand government power in a number of ways. Proposed legislation would expand government authority to require DNA swabs, require mental health professionals to turn on their patients, require more child offenses to be tried as adults, and spend tax dollars on more mental health services.
State House members represent districts with about 70,000 people and must run for election every two years. Accordingly, House members are much more susceptible to challenges, protests, and political whims. An impasse developed with House members wanting to pass everything but the gun control measures, none of which would have prevented the Covenant School murders, and leftist protesters wanting nothing short of gun control.
Fortunately, the State Senate also has a supermajority of Republicans. Its members represent much larger districts of 200,000+ people and are elected every four years. The State Senate is much less responsive to political charades and much more deliberative. The State Senate can afford to take their time in responding to an event or demand for new legislation.
The State Senate promptly killed all the Republican House legislation by referring every House bill to a study committee (which may or may not ever meet at some undisclosed time in the future). This is the polite way to kill a bill without voting it down. Republican House leadership was furious. None of their legislation was discussed or considered in the State Senate.
The State Senate then proceeded to pass four bills. The first bill waives sales tax on gun locks and gun safes. This legislation also authorized the state to give away the over $1 million in gun locks the State currently has in storage. Second, the Senate passed legislation that required the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to submit a report to the governor on human trafficking. The TBI already collects data on human trafficking. This legislation merely required the TBI to submit a report based on the existing data. The third piece of Senate legislation required criminal court clerks to report convictions to the TBI in a more timely fashion. And finally, the State Senate appropriated millions more to mental health agencies.
At the end of the first week of the special session, the State Senate passed the above four pieces of legislation and adjourned. The House was left drifting in the wind, still debating all their legislation even though it was dead in the State Senate.
Reconvening for the second week of the special session, Democrat House member Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), the leader of the protests, was called out of order multiple times. The session closed with no further actions, but Pearson and his cadre will be back.
Finally, at no time during this eight-day special legislative session did anyone explain how any of the proposed legislation could have prevented the March assault in Nashville, or prevent any future attack. Thankfully, the special legislative session is over and “bad laws” were averted.
NOTE: The First Civil Right is To Keep and Bear Arms. It is, as James Madison’s Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, rightly defined it, “the palladium of the liberties of the republic,” the ultimate assurance of all other rights.
All defenders of American Liberty and its foundational guarantor, the Second Amendment, should be prepared to articulate and refute the rhetorical gun control agenda disinformation propagated by Democrats and their Leftmedia publicists.
See these updated Footnotes for key points of rebuttal: Firearm Fiction v. Facts.
Only law-abiding citizens abide by the law. Only outlaws perpetrate acts of violence. Making good people helpless won’t make bad people harmless.
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