{"id":109190,"date":"2025-04-12T15:42:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T20:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109190"},"modified":"2025-04-12T15:42:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T20:42:59","slug":"109190","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109190","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tennesseelookout.com\/2025\/04\/11\/bill-to-bar-giving-guns-to-certain-mental-health-patients-stalls-until-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bill to bar giving guns to certain mental health patients stalls until 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A bill that would criminalize knowingly giving firearms to someone who recently received inpatient mental health treatment was pushed to 2026 on Wednesday \u00a0amid questions about its language.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Shaundelle Brooks, a Hermitage Democrat, named the bill \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/wapp.capitol.tn.gov\/apps\/BillInfo\/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB0947&amp;GA=114\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Akilah\u2019s Law<\/a>\u201d in honor of her son Akilah Dasilva, who was killed in a mass shooting at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The shooter,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/02\/04\/1078430544\/waffle-house-shooter-found-guilty-on-4-counts-of-murder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Travis Reinking<\/a>\u00a0of Morton, Illinois, had a history of schizophrenia and delusions. Prior to the shooting, Illinois State Police had revoked his firearm owner identification card, forcing him to surrender his guns to his father. His father then returned the guns to Reinking, breaking Illinois state law.<\/p>\n<p>Tennessee bars giving firearms to juveniles or intoxicated people, but not those who have been committed for mental health evaluation.<\/p>\n<p>Brooks said her bill intends to bring Tennessee in line with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ilga.gov\/legislation\/ilcs\/fulltext.asp?DocName=072000050K24-3#:~:text=24%2D3.,sale%20or%20delivery%20of%20firearms.&amp;text=concealed%20upon%20the%20person%20to%20any%20person%20under%2018%20years%20of%20age.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Illinois law<\/a>\u00a0that prohibits someone from giving or selling a firearm to a person who has been a patient in a mental health institution within five years.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" title=\"\u201cGiving guns to certain mental health patients could become a crime in Tennessee\u201d \u2014 Tennessee Lookout\" src=\"https:\/\/tennesseelookout.com\/2025\/03\/31\/giving-guns-to-certain-mental-health-patients-could-become-a-crime-in-tennessee\/embed\/#?secret=AfY6M3ZfVb#?secret=4CBGw8km6M\" width=\"500\" height=\"460\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" data-secret=\"4CBGw8km6M\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Brooks\u2019 bill\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tennesseelookout.com\/2025\/03\/31\/giving-guns-to-certain-mental-health-patients-could-become-a-crime-in-tennessee\/\">passed the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee<\/a>\u00a0in late March, but questions over the bill\u2019s scope and language arose in the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 8.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sen. Paul Rose, a Southwest Tennessee Republican, asked for clarity on what the bill defines as a \u201cmental health institution\u201d and what it means to be \u201cadmitted.\u201d Rose questioned whether a person who makes routine visits to a mental health provider for medication would be considered a patient of a mental health institution under the bill\u2019s definition.<\/p>\n<p>The bill\u2019s Senate sponsor, Memphis Democrat Raumesh Akbari, said she did not believe the bill would apply in that case.<\/p>\n<p>Elliot Pinsly, president and CEO of the Behavioral Health Foundation, said the way the legislation is written could have a \u201cchilling effect on people\u2019s willingness to seek mental health treatment in Tennessee.\u201d Pinsly, a licensed clinical social worker, founded the policy-focused nonprofit in 2020.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cThe actual bill makes it a crime punishable by up to one year imprisonment to sell, give or otherwise transfer a firearm to a person who has received just about any kind of mental health care or addiction treatment in the past five years, voluntary or involuntary, outpatient or inpatient,\u201d Pinsly said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Facing uncertainty on the outcome of a committee vote, Akbari chose to move the bill to the general subcommittee, essentially putting it on ice until it can be resurrected in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI look forward to Representative Brooks continuing to move this through the House \u2026 I will be working with all members on this committee so that we can reach a solution so we can really protect folks in Tennessee,\u201d Akbari said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill to bar giving guns to certain mental health patients stalls until 2026 A bill that would criminalize knowingly giving firearms to someone who recently received inpatient mental health treatment was pushed to 2026 on Wednesday \u00a0amid questions about its language. Rep. Shaundelle Brooks, a Hermitage Democrat, named the bill \u201cAkilah\u2019s Law\u201d in honor of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109190\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,5,8,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine","category-politics","category-rkba","category-scratch-a-lib-find-a-moron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109191,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109190\/revisions\/109191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}