A spokesman for Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) told The Tennessee Star on Wednesday that Sexton supports the lawsuit brought against the City of Memphis by the Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA) and Gun Owners of America (GOA) over its new gun ordinance that restrict Second Amendment within city limits.
The lawsuit was filed last week after Memphis voters passed legislation to require pistol licenses, impose red flag laws, and ban weapons deemed assault rifles, and Sexton’s spokesman confirmed his support for the lawsuit after the speaker previously promised the Tennessee House of Representatives would withhold Memphis’ share of state sales tax revenue if it imposed the ordinance.
Chris Stone, the director of State and Local Affairs for GOA, told The Star the group appreciates Sexton’s support and said the speaker’s interest in the lawsuit suggests Memphis plans to move forward with its ordinance, which is slated to go into effect when the Tennessee General Assembly enters its 2025 legislative session.
“We’re grateful to the Speaker for his support,” said Stone. The GOA spokesman added, “his backing only confirms our concerns that Memphis will indeed move forward with enforcement of this illegal ordinance, and that the possibility of being prosecuted, albeit illegally, will have a chilling effect on Memphians who want to exercise their rights.”
The lawsuit notes that at least one sponsor of the ordinance, Memphis City Council Member Jeff Warren, acknowledged that the ordinance violated Tennessee’s laws that prohibit legislative bodies other than the General Assembly from creating gun laws and a new law prohibiting the creation of red flag laws before it went before voters on Election Day.
“What we’re hoping to see is that the legislature will look and say, ‘One size doesn’t fit all with this. Our urban centers have different problems than our rural centers. Let’s tailor our laws to help our citizens,’” said Warren, according to the lawsuit.
The Memphis councilman later explained he pushed the ordinance to persuade Tennessee lawmakers “to pass laws to allow this to become legal.”
Sexton previously argued in a post to the social media platform X that adopting the ordinance would demonstrate evasion of state laws, writing, “Local govt’s who want to be progressive & evade state laws will lose shared sales tax funding.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
If big cities in Tennessee would enforce the law, there would not be need for banning firearms.
Nashville and Memphis both have DAs which let criminals slide.