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<![CDATA[Tennessee special session]]>

Gun control push in Tennessee now a lost cause

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The topic of gun control has been a major part of the news in Tennessee this week. After all, what else was this special session intended to be about?

However, just because Gov. Bill Lee wants a particular bit of gun control–one that isn’t likely to accomplish anything even if it were to pass–doesn’t mean that any other Republican is eager to earn the ire of their base by doing something anti-gunners have been pushing for.

In fact, based on what we’re currently seeing out of the state, it looks like Lee’s hope for gun control, as well as those of anti-gunners throughout the state, are well and truly dead.

Tennessee Republican lawmakers hit an impasse Thursday just a few days into a special session sparked by a deadly school shooting in March, leaving little certainty about what they might ultimately pass, yet all but guaranteeing it won’t be any significant gun control change.

After advancing a few bills this week, the Senate quickly adjourned Thursday without taking up any more proposals, promising to come back Monday. The announcement prompted booing and jeers from the crowd of gun control advocates watching in the galleries.

Meanwhile, the House is continuing to churn through a full slate of other proposals, and the Senate has not promised to take any of those up.

Senate Speaker Randy McNally told reporters Thursday that senators will consider any bills the House may amend but held off from promising to making a compromise with the other chamber.

“We might be here for too long of a period of time,” McNally said. “We’re waiting to see what happens in the House,” McNally said.

Honestly, this shouldn’t be surprising.

Apparently, Lee couldn’t find a single Republican willing to sponsor his red flag bill. Democrat versions of Lee’s proposal were killed earlier this week.

I can’t help but think that part of the issue is that a special session is the kind of thing that’s just going to annoy the legislators in the first place and make them even less likely to pass what the governor wants passed.

Sure, gun control supporters might be accurate, but those who aren’t vehemently in favor of such laws are likely to be bothered by having to go back to the capital and deal with just a single issue. People who are annoyed aren’t open to compromise.

Of course, that’s just my armchair psychologist’s take on it.

The truth of the matter is that whether they’re annoyed or not, what’s being proposed and pushed isn’t any good for Tennessee. Gun control doesn’t make anyone safer, especially one with such a large rural population that may not have cops on every street corner.

If anti-gun regulations aren’t going to come of the special session there, that’s good news for the state, though I know plenty of people will disagree.

Frankly, I don’t care if they disagree. These are people who think gun control is the answer, which apparently Lee thought when he called this session as well.

The best thing in the world for Tennessee is for what we’re seeing right now to hold.

On Tennessee special session, be wary of news reporting

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Tennessee has kicked off its special session and the usual suspects showed up on both sides of the debate. Since this is pretty much the only legislative action happening in the country beyond the local level, it’s going to get a lot of attention.

That includes media attention, naturally.

But that doesn’t mean people don’t need to question what’s reported.

Let’s start with what looked like an own goal by Tennessee Republicans.

The argument over 8×11 paper signs in the legislature boiled over Tuesday as the entire public was cleared out of a House subcommittee by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

On Monday, the Tennessee House voted on allowing the pieces of paper along partisan lines. Democrats argued they were harmless, and questioned if guns could be brought into Cordell Hull, why couldn’t the signage.

One of the first three thrown out, Allison Polidor, asked the same question.

And let’s be clear, that’s not an unfair question. The First Amendment rights impacted are just as important as the Second Amendment rights.

However, there may be more to the story than was being reported here.

I say that because of a different story, one also seemingly trying to frame the incident in the worst possible way.

The grieving parents of victims of a Nashville school shooting were among dozens of people thrown out of a special Tennesse legislative hearing room while they waited to testify in favour of gun control measures.

The bereaved family members broke down in tears on Tuesday as troopers from the Tennessee Highway Patrol forced them out of the second day of the legislative session where they’d been called to testify.

Absolutely terrible.

Or was it?

This is the next paragraph:

Republican state representative Lowell Russell oversaw the meeting, where spectators were thrown out for allegedly clapping, yelling and holding signs after being ordered to stop.

In other words, there was a general sense of disruption. It’s also likely that the clapping and yelling played a bigger role in what happened than people silently holding up signs.

But that got glossed over with this:

“I was supposed to speak, I was supposed to testify,” said Sarah Shoop Neumann, sobbing and shaking in front of the silent GOP-controlled House subcommittee room.

Later, it’s acknowledged that Neumann did get a chance to testify, but that’s a fair bit later…after people can get good and outraged at the injustice of it all.

Neumann says she wasn’t being disruptive, as do the two quoted in the other stories, which is interesting because it means no one bothered to interview anyone who was being loud and disruptive.

For the sake of argument, let’s say I believe everyone is telling the truth here, that they were personally nondisruptive during the special session.

It doesn’t really matter.

Tennessee is trying to deal with this special session, one few actually want to be at, and they don’t need people being noisy and screwing up the process. Yes, people have a right to free speech, but the work of governing means there has to be some degree of decorum observed, and removing people from the chamber when they won’t observe it seems pretty rational.

But the media doesn’t want people to see it that way.

What the media wants people to see is those who could best be described as collateral damage, those removed who did nothing wrong, all while ignoring those who were responsible for the problems.

Understand that the news media won’t be on our side and will try to frame everything that happens in the worst possible light.

Legislating without understanding the motive: TN Gov. Bill Lee gropes around in the dark

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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s special session to pass new gun control legislation is underway. In my opinion, this session has bad optics and politics for the Second Amendment side. Whether we like it or not, whether we call out the chicanery and emotional manipulation or not, the sight of women (rightfully) getting booted out for breaking the rules and then crying about it generates sympathy in a significant part of the public that votes. And that public reaction is the exact outcome the gun controllers are working towards.

Don’t believe me? Recall what happened in Colorado after Sandy and Lonnie Phillips lost their lawsuit against Lucky Gunner for selling the ammunition the Aurora, CO shooter used. It was predictable from the start that the lawsuit was meritless and the parents would lose. As expected, the parents lost and had to file for bankruptcy as they owed over $200,000 in legal fees to Lucky Gunner’s attorneys. The gun control group Brady used the grieving parents to file this lawsuit and left them holding the bag when they lost the case. As Tom wrote earlier this year,

Then, when it goes absolutely nowhere–which the gun control groups should know would be the case–folks in places with laws like Colorado are left holding the bag.

Brady has much deeper pockets than the Phillips did. It has the resources to have tried to make this right but opted to do no such thing.

Instead, they engage in the disgusting and likely predatory tactic of convincing people to file forlorn lawsuits, then abandoning them when it fizzles.

The parents’ bankruptcy generated media buzz, and Colorado’s legislature swooped in and did exactly what the gun control movement wanted in response to the parents losing the meritless lawsuit: they weakened protections for the firearms industry against meritless lawsuits. As reported in The Hill:

A third measure passed by the legislature will strengthen the state’s red flag law, and a fourth rolls back some legal protections for the firearm industry, exposing them to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.

[..]

In their speeches about rolling back legal protections for gun manufacturers, lawmakers looked often to Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was slain in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. The parents tried to sue the companies that had sold the shooter ammunition and tear gas but were unsuccessful. Ultimately, the couple ended up owing more than $200,000 in defense attorney fees and had to file for bankruptcy.

The methods were disgusting, but the gun control movement got what they wanted, thanks to the poor optics of bankrupt, grieving parents. 

The gun controllers are trying to replicate that in Tennessee. The tactics are similar. Get grieving families out front and use them as props, make sure they break some rules and get kicked out, film them crying, and make the legislature look bad for standing by the Constitution.

There’s this saying attributed to Aristotle that, “The law is reason, free from passion.” The legislature is acting according to that, looking at the situation with reason, leaving emotion out of the equation. That’s their duty and they are performing it correctly, going so far as to tell the Governor they won’t tag along. But that won’t be enough.

To counter the immense political and manipulative media pressure they’re under, they need to point at the missing manifesto and refuse to cooperate until it is released. The motivation for this special session is to find solutions to prevent a repeat of the Covenant School shooting. But without understanding the assailant’s motive, how is that even possible? 

Tennessee’s legislators need to tell the Governor, the gun control authoritarians and the media: “No manifesto, no new gun control law.”