{"id":95021,"date":"2023-08-07T19:47:27","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T00:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=95021"},"modified":"2023-08-07T19:47:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T00:47:44","slug":"95021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=95021","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennessee GOP committee warns governor on special session<\/a><\/p>\n

If Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was hoping to bring his fellow Republicans around on the idea of a special session to pass his version of a \u201cred flag\u201d law and other gun-related legislation before officially calling the session into being, his hopes were dashed this weekend when the state\u2019s Republican Party Executive Committee adopted a resolution instead asking the governor to drop his plans altogether.<\/p>\n

According to the Chattanooga Free Press, the resolution\u2019s language was suggested by committee member Tina Bensiker, who says she\u2019s concerned that many of the ideas that have been floated would\u00a0violate the rights<\/a>\u00a0of Tennessee residents, while failing to take a bite out of violent crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel at this point a lot of this is really emotion as opposed to rational and reasoned,\u201d Benkiser added. \u201cMy concern, and a lot of others\u2019 concerns, is that some of the proposals we\u2019ve heard really violate due process of law. And that is a fundamental concern. And when you start talking about potentially infringing on people\u2019s constitutional rights, that needs to be thought out over a long period of time with people who have thought, debated, looked at the language and fleshed all that out. Not something to be rushed through.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Benkiser said she hopes Lee will take heed of the GOP action.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that people sometimes act out of emotion when something horrendous has happened, as happened here in Nashville, but really to friends of his. I understand that, and I think the natural reaction is to want to do something and to want to do something now. But like I said, when you\u2019re talking about constitutional rights, at the end of the day, you need to take the time to think that out.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other committee members are concerned that the statehouse could turn into a circus once the special session gets underway, pointing to the protests on the floor of the state House earlier this year that resulted in the expulsion of two Democratic lawmakers. Those legislators recently\u00a0won special elections<\/a>\u00a0in their heavily Democratic districts and are vowing to introduce a host of gun control measures during the special session, and some on the GOP Executive Committee believe the special session would once again inflame tensions and create a flashpoint for anti-gun activists to rally around.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Committee member John Stanbery of Cleveland told the Times Free Press that legislators had an opportunity to pass the order of protection bill when they were in regular session and chose not to.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I personally do not know why you would call them back to do something they\u2019ve already rejected,\u201d Stanbery said. \u201cThey rejected it by choosing not to do it. Secondly, I think it paints a target on all their backs. I think they\u2019re going to come up here and have to walk a gantlet. And a lot of it will be out-of-state people. And so I think it puts an unreasonable strain not only on government but their safety and security.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

State GOP Chairman Scott Golden told two reporters following the meeting that his sense of executive committee members\u2019 feelings is they\u2019d prefer not to have the special session but be able to address firearms issues during their regular session that starts in January.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll send [the resolution] as soon as we get the final language and everything, we\u2019ll send it to the governor and all the appropriate officials the sense of where the Republican Party\u201d is, Golden said.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Asked what effect the resolution would have, Golden said he personally has no knowledge of where things stand with Lee. But he noted he had spoken with enough legislators to know they don\u2019t feel comfortable with everything going on.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think our members are very reflective, they talk to their legislators as well, and I think that was the sense of what the Tennessee Republican Party said today,\u201d Golden said.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The governor himself, meanwhile, has been pretty tight-lipped about the particulars of the session, though he\u2019s been holding closed-door meetings with various lawmakers as they strategize on a legislative to-do list. We\u2019re now two weeks away from the supposed start date, and we\u2019ve yet to see any official draft of the governor\u2019s \u201ctemporary mental health restraining order\u201d or other gun-related bills. If and when the session begins lawmakers are expected to work swiftly on an\u00a0 untold number of bills, none of which the public has been able to peruse and comment on.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if this resolution will have any effect on the governor\u2019s decision, but the closer we get to August 21st without seeing the particulars of what lawmakers will be proposing, the more opposition we can expect on the ground in Tennessee. Gun owners across the state shouldn\u2019t wait for Lee to make the official call either. Now\u2019s the time to chat up your state representative or senator and demand they hold firm on protecting your Second Amendment rights. If the session does take place there might be some bills worth supporting, like the idea to build nine new state-run mental health facilities to help address the critical shortage of acute mental health care, but any attempt to address violent crime by criminalizing the rights of responsible gun owners should be rejected outright by the legislature\u2019s Republican majority, and those lawmakers need to hear from their constituents\u00a0now\u00a0<\/em>if gun owners are going to survive the session with their rights intact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennessee GOP committee warns governor on special session If Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was hoping to bring his fellow Republicans around on the idea of a special session to pass his version of a \u201cred flag\u201d law and other gun-related legislation before officially calling the session into being, his hopes were dashed this weekend when … 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":[79,5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-politics","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95021","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=95021"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95023,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95021\/revisions\/95023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}