Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed John Harris of the Tennessee Firearms Association to the newsmaker line to comment upon recent Tennessee General Assembly legislation that deals with concealed firearm carry permits.
Leahy: On the line now, John Harris, the president of the Tennessee Firearms Association. Good morning, John Harris.
Harris: Good morning.
Leahy: Just give us an overview of your view about this bill that Rusty Grills has introduced and also how the Tennessee General Assembly is doing from the perspective of the Tennessee Firearms Association this session? It would allow certain Tennesseans to carry rifles or shotguns, not just handguns.
Harris: The bill actually, as I understand it, to advance a comment that Speaker Sexton made last spring that Tennessee could already carry long arms like rifles and shotguns without the requirement for a permit.
And there was some accuracy to that statement. For example, the vehicle transport law that went on the books in 2014 allows that with respect to vehicles. But there was an inaccuracy to the extent that Tennessee has got a really weird definition for what’s an unloaded weapon.
So Representative Grills, as I read his bill, has introduced legislation to say that if you have a permit in Tennessee, so this wouldn’t apply to anybody but permit holders, that you would be able to carry with that handgun permit any firearm in Tennessee. He’s basically converting the handgun permit to a firearm permit.
Leahy: And what is your position at the Tennessee Firearms Association about this particular bill?
Harris: There’s a number of states that already allow that. Texas, for example, Virginia. If you remember the Virginia capitol demonstrations a few years ago, they were carrying long arms on the capital.
It’s not uncommon at all in other states. Tennessee, as uniquely in comparison to other states, prohibited that. And part of the reason is Tennessee’s basic law is that it’s a crime for a citizen to carry any firearm in public and you have to have a permit or some other statutory defense to be able to do so.
And this legislation by Representative Grills is a step in the direction of getting rid of what we consider to be a very backward view of the Second Amendment that Tennessee continues to carry on its books.
Leahy: Does Representative Grills, to your knowledge, have a co-sponsor in the Senate?
Harris: I think the bill was filed Thursday or Friday last week. And I’ve been watching it. I’ve not seen it updated with a Senate sponsor yet.
I think one is going to file this week that they are sponsoring the Senate version but we don’t have authority at this point to name that person because they haven’t decided for sure yet.
Leahy: What’s the prospect of this bill passing in this session of the Tennessee General Assembly in both the Senate and the House? And what is the prospect of it actually being signed into law by Governor Lee?
Harris: We think it’s got a good prospect of passage in part because a lot of legislators like Speaker Sexton do have the belief that it’s already okay to carry a long arm and that you don’t need a permit for that.
Particularly one, as he discussed last spring on the radio. But that’s a misunderstanding. And so we think there’s some good support, particularly in rural areas and rural legislators for the legislation.
What Lee will do with it, we’re not sure. Lee has not demonstrated to us a history in the last four years of being very pro-Second Amendment. So I don’t know that we can expect him to sign it.
He’s not indicated any open support for it yet, but I think if they pass it by a good margin, he likely either will sign it or will allow it to become law without a signature.
Leahy: Because in the state of Tennessee, a simple majority in each house can override a governor’s veto, right?
Harris: Yes, and we’ve done that several times over the years on firearms-related bills. The most recent example was in 2010 when the legislature overrode some vetoed legislation, I think by Governor Bredesen.
Leahy: Let me play devil’s advocate here, throw you a little bit of a softball Second Amendment wise. Why do Tennesseans who have permits, why do they need to carry long arms like that?
Harris: Well, there are reasons. Years ago, there was a bill being debated on the House floor when former Speaker Naihfeh was no longer a speaker, but he was still a House member.
And there was a bill running that may have been the vehicle transport law. And he lived in a rural area over in Tipton County, and he was amazed and indicated on the floor that current Tennessee law prohibited him as a rural landowner from having a rifle or a shotgun in his vehicle for purposes of livestock protection.
Leahy: Right.
Harris: We have to keep in mind that Tennessee is not Nashville. There are many large parts of the state that are rural in which people do want and prefer to have long arms for a variety of reasons, as opposed to handguns as a tool or resource in their vehicles.
Leahy: I thought you were going to come back with this quote from the Second Amendment. “The right to bear arms shall not be infringed!” (Laughter)
Harris: Well, it’s interesting. It’s not just in the Second Amendment, but the Tennessee Supreme Court has twice addressed that issue and made clear that the right that the Second Amendment protects in Tennessee is not just for the handgun, but it’s for any weapon that has military grade use or utility.
Leahy: Tell me now about the Tennessee firearms legislative agenda this year. Do you have any bills out there beyond this one that you’re tracking and you’re supporting?
Harris: We’re tracking about 10 bills so far. Most of them are being put in by legislators on their own. For example, Representative Sparks says we’ve got a bill in to extend the sales tax holiday on gun safes for a year.
We think that’s a great idea. It promotes the safety and responsible storage of firearms that you don’t need on an everyday basis. We do have two bills that were carryovers from last year that would fix, if enacted, the problems with the governor’s permitless carry law.
We also expect a third bill, at least one more bill on that issue to be filed to address the fact that Tennessee starts off with this concept that we think is just abysmal, that it’s a basic crime for a citizen to carry a gun in public.
There’s one already filed called the Kyle Rittenhouse Bill. And we expect to see another one that would address the issue of to what extent and what degree of investigation a district attorney like Glenn Funk has to do before they charge someone and take them to trial with a crime if it’s a legitimate self defense case and it’s as evident as it was at at the Rittenhouse trial.
Leahy: That’s very interesting. Let me ask you one last question. It’s a big question, though briefly for our listing audience. Tell our listeners what the difference between the Tennessee Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association is.
Harris: The Tennessee Firearms Association is all volunteer. It is all non-profit and it’s all based in Tennessee. And we have had a 27-year history of focusing only on and intently on gun laws and impact on Tennesseans. We’re not out here to raise money to provide seven-figure salaries for executives and a job basis for a lot of people.
Like I said, we’re all volunteer and we do this because it is a grassroots movement and we have been far more effective in Tennessee, even by the Legislature’s own acknowledgment with numerous proclamations and recommendations over the years for the work that we’ve done well.
Leahy: John Harris, 27 years at the Tennessee Firearms Association, thanks for all the good work you do and thanks for joining us today. I hope you have a great day.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
