{"id":94664,"date":"2023-07-24T17:16:28","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T22:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=94664"},"modified":"2023-07-24T17:16:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T22:16:28","slug":"94664","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=94664","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennessee lawmakers standing firm on Second Amendment ahead of special session<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, at least\u00a0some\u00a0<\/em>of them are, and it sure looks like the opposition to Gov. Bill Lee\u2019s \u201cred flag\u201d proposal is growing as we get closer to August 21st; the date when Lee says lawmakers will return to the capitol for a special session to respond to the Covenant School shooting in Nashville earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Though we\u2019re less than a month away from the start of that expected session, Lee has yet to officially call lawmakers back to the state capitol as his office works behind the scenes to garner support for his \u201ctemporary mental health restraining order\u201d. Meanwhile, many Republican lawmakers are speaking out against the proposal, while still trying to\u00a0provide some political cover<\/a>\u00a0to the governor himself.<\/p>\n

About 100 people came out for a 2nd Amendment rally Saturday at the Enoch community building at the Henry County Fairgrounds to hear local and area GOP officials speak about the session.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 State Sen. John Stevens, R-Huntingdon, seemed confident the state Senate won\u2019t be moved by Lee\u2019s gun law proposals, which many Republicans have likened to a \u201cred flag law.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Senate is never going to walk back our 2nd Amendment rights,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of the leftists want this. Governor Lee is not a leftist.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

State Rep. Tandy Darby, R-Greenfield, also was careful not to criticize Lee in general, but only on this issue.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI respect him, but I\u2019m not on the same page as the governor on this. This looks like a red flag law,\u201d said Darby.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Darby warned that on Aug. 21, when the special session begins, \u201call eyes will be on Tennessee. There\u2019s nobody else in session (across the country).\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

State Rep. Jay Reedy, R-Erin, who represents about a third of Henry County (Darby represents the rest), seemed unhappy a special session had been called at all.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome people think that, on August 21, we\u2019re gonna solve all of Tennessee\u2019s problems. No, we\u2019re not,\u201d Reedy said. \u201cWe\u2019re just months away from our regular session, where we could have real in-depth conversations about this.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Darby\u2019s right that Tennessee\u2019s special session will draw national attention, not only because even most full-time legislatures will be in recess when the session is slated to kick off in late August, but because of the topic at hand. Lee\u2019s proposal for a \u201ctemporary mental health restraining order\u201d isn\u2019t going to be the only topic of discussion, and Democrats are expected to bring their own anti-gun bills to Nashville, including a more traditional \u201cred flag\u201d law, bans on gun sales to under-21s, and prohibiting the sale of so-called assault weapons and large capacity magazines.<\/p>\n

Those bills won\u2019t go far in the Republican-dominated legislature, but there are clearly a lot of conservatives who are worried about the political cost of standing pat. That\u2019s why we\u2019re starting to see some\u00a0alternatives to Lee\u2019s proposal<\/a>\u00a0emerge, including one piece of legislation that I believe would offer a substantial improvement to the status quo while still protecting Tennesseans\u2019 Second Amendment rights.\u00a0 As we reported last week, Rep. Scott Cepcicky is proposing the state build nine new mental health facilities, each with 150 inpatient beds. That would almost quadruple the number of state-funded beds available for inpatient care, though at a price tag of nearly $500-million.<\/p>\n

Cepcicky told the\u00a0Tennessean\u00a0<\/em>newspaper that the outlay would be \u201ca significant investment in providing opportunities for people to get the help they need in both inpatient, outpatient and long term care,\u201d and he\u2019s not wrong. Not everyone suffering from mental illness is a threat to the public or themselves (in fact, the vast majority of those diagnosed will never be accused of a violent crime), but they\u2019re still suffering, and there\u2019s an acute lack of care for those most in need of help. Cepcicky\u2019s legislation, if approved, would mark a major step towards eliminating the crisis in mental health care in Tennessee, and could be an example for other states to follow.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s no guarantee that Cepcicky\u2019s legislation will be adopted, any more than Lee\u2019s version of a red flag is guaranteed to go down in flames. Tennessee\u2019s Republican majority are largely saying the right things now, but gun owners need to keep up their contacts and pressure for lawmakers to\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>the right thing if and when they return to the state capitol later this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennessee lawmakers standing firm on Second Amendment ahead of special session Well, at least\u00a0some\u00a0of them are, and it sure looks like the opposition to Gov. Bill Lee\u2019s \u201cred flag\u201d proposal is growing as we get closer to August 21st; the date when Lee says lawmakers will return to the capitol for a special session to … Continue reading “”<\/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":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94664","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=94664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94665,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94664\/revisions\/94665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}