Tennessee House Republicans were confronted by protesters shouting “You are accountable for harm” after passing a bill that would allow select teachers and staff to carry concealed firearms in public schools without disclosing their identities to parents or other teachers.
The bill got 68 votes in favor and 28 votes against it, so it will now go to the Republican governor. Please think about Bill Lee. If he makes it a law, it would be the biggest increase in access to guns in the state since a deadly shooting at a school last year.
The public people who didn’t like the bill yelled at the Republican lawmakers after they voted. The House Speaker, Cameron Sexton, told everyone to leave the galleries.
Four House Republicans and all Democrats didn’t support the bill, even though the state Senate had already passed it. The rule would stop sharing which employees have guns with anyone other than school administrators and police, including students’ parents and other teachers. The school principal, school district and police must all agree for the staff to carry guns.
The proposal offers a very different solution to The Covenant School shooting compared to what Lee suggested last year. Republican lawmakers rejected his proposal to prevent people who are considered a threat to themselves or others from having guns.
It is unlikely that Lee will say no, because it has never happened before and lawmakers can easily disagree with him.
“The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said that you are creating something that will stop people from doing something. ” “In our state, we have had problems with shootings. ”
Republicans said no to ideas from the Democrats, like needing parents’ permission, letting people know if someone has a gun, and making the school district responsible if someone gets hurt or killed by staff with guns. Democrat lawmakerJustin Jones tried to change the bill’s name to the “Refusal to Protect Kids in Schools Act. ”
“My Republican friends are keeping our state in a difficult situation to please their gun industry donors,” Jones said. “It is very wrong. ”
It’s not certain if any school districts would use the law if it is approved. For instance, a representative for Metro Nashville Public Schools named Sean Braisted said that the district thinks it’s safest for only approved police officers to have guns on school grounds.
Around half of the US states allow teachers or other employees with concealed carry permits to have guns at school, according to the Giffords Law Center, a group that supports stricter gun laws. The governor of Iowa approved a new law that allows trained school employees to carry a permit to protect themselves from being sued if they need to use force to protect students.
In March 2023, a person shot and killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School, a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The police later killed the shooter.
After the shooting, people tried to convince the Statehouse to make strict gun control rules, but the Republican-led lawmakers mostly said no. They rejected gun control ideas from Democrats and even from Lee during regular yearly meetings and a special meeting, even though parents of Covenant students talked about the shooting and its long-term impacts.
The new bill says that if a worker wants to bring a gun to school, they need to have a permit and permission from the school principal and local police. They also have to pass a background check and complete 40 hours of handgun training. They were not allowed to bring guns to school events in stadiums, gyms, or auditoriums.
Tennessee made a law in 2016 that said school workers in two rural counties could bring guns to school, but they never actually did it.
Tennessee Republicans have worked to make gun laws less strict, and in 2021 they agreed that people can carry handguns without needing a permit. Lee supported the change.
The first law said that people 21 and older could carry guns in public without needing a permit. Two years later, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti made a agreement in a lawsuit that allowed 18- to 20-year-olds to carry handguns in public.
After the shooting last year, Tennessee Republicans made a new law to give more protection to gun and ammo dealers, makers, and sellers from being sued. This year, the governor and lawmakers agreed that private schools with pre-kindergarten classes can have guns at their campus. Private schools that do not have pre-kindergarten classes can choose whether or not to allow people to bring guns onto their property.
They have made some strict rules about who can have a gun. One law needs the governor’s signature to make it so that certain criminal defendants who are ruled unable to stand trial because of their mental illness or intellectual disability will have to go to a hospital for treatment and temporarily lose their right to have a gun. Another proposal needs the Senate’s agreement. It would take away the right to have a gun for young people who have committed serious crimes until they are 25 years old.