Opinion: Reprieve on gun legislation will allow Tennessee to take the lead in gun safety reform | Chattanooga Times Free Press

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State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, had choices.

As chairman, he could have postponed scheduled gun legislation in the Senate for a week or so and taken it up again in the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying the people’s business must go on after the recent shooting at a Nashville Christian school that left six people dead.

Or he could have hurried consideration of a gun safety law (which was likely to be amended, adding more protections), which might have been passed out of sympathy for the recent deaths but without consideration for unintended consequences.

But Gardenhire did neither. Instead, he announced that all gun bills would be moved to next year’s legislative session. And he’s taking heat for that decision.

We think he’s right.

The 74-year-old legislator, with more life experience than some of his less-seasoned colleagues, explained his reasoning to Times Free Press reporter Andy Sher.

It’s a “bad time to address problems because you have too much pressure from groups who are emotional — and rightly so — emotional over what’s happened,” he said. “And we can step back. Nothing we could have passed this year before last Monday’s [shooting] would have affected that particular event, one way or the other. So it’s best that we stop, we talk about what solutions may be out there.”

Indeed, we think it’s incumbent for Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the Republican supermajority to become a leader on gun reforms, taking the eight months until next year’s session to craft sensible legislation, get a majority of House and Senate members to join, and prove that Tennessee can be a leader both in protecting Second Amendment rights and in safety from guns.

When we think about the state becoming a leader on a crucial issue, we think back just to the 2010s when Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and the legislature made the Volunteer State the first in the nation to allow qualified students to attend community college tuition-free. Further legislation made it possible for qualified adult students to return to community college tuition-free.

At the time, then-President Barack Obama was talking about the hugely indebted, bloated federal government taking on such a role. That a state could lead on such an issue was justifiably a proud moment for Tennessee.

So could the state do the same thing on guns? With the right leadership and the right persuasion, it might.

One measure that Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the speaker of the Senate, and Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton have expressed openness toward is a “red-flag” law, which would permit a court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person believed to present a danger to themselves or others.

Gov. Lee also has made statements that indicate support. He told reporters recently that one thing everyone could probably agree on was that “a person who is a threat to themselves or a threat to others should not have access to weapons.” He also maintained he wanted to do so without infringing on constitutional rights.

Following the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting, the conservative legislature there passed a “red flag” law, and, according to The Associated Press, it was implemented more than 3,500 times in the first 20 months after being signed into law.

Another measure would be to snug up who can buy guns. Currently, anyone who is 18 years old and eligible can enter a gun store and buy a shotgun or rifle (such as an AR-15). However, the same 18-year-old cannot buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer (but could legally buy one from an unlicensed dealer). It would be better if the age were 21 for both types of guns and the rules for licensed and unlicensed handgun dealers were the same.

A third measure is equalizing background checks. Licensed gun dealers must perform background checks on potential buyers, but unlicensed sellers are not required to do so. Since a 2017 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine estimated that 22% of U.S. gun owners acquired their most recent firearm without a background check, it makes sense to have background checks from all sellers (the paperwork required, notwithstanding).

We’re not unrealistic, though. Suggestions about banning the manufacture of certain guns, about confiscating guns from people and about rescinding the Second Amendment are non-starters. They’re not serious. They don’t show a willingness to move from where we are to progress on this issue.

We also don’t imagine that such laws would be a panacea. They would have little effect on the illegal guns that are responsible for much of the crime in the U.S. They even couldn’t be guaranteed to stop mass murders. But they surely could be seen as fair by most Tennesseans, and they would have an effect (though it’s impossible to measure how much).

Gov. Lee — a week after the Nashville shootings — announced new actions to increase safety at public and private schools, but we believe Gardenhire’s gun legislation reprieve gives the governor and legislative leaders the chance to put together a broader gun reform package, sell it and get it passed in the 2024 — yes, an election year — session. It’s an opportunity for Tennessee to lead.

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