Live from Music Row Friday 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, founder of the Tennessee Firearms Association, to the newsmaker line to comment upon Joe Biden’s speech Thursday night and the mechanics of red flag laws.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line right now, our very good friend, John Harris, the founder and president of the Tennessee Firearms Association. John, I suppose you watched this disastrous speech by the legal but not legitimate grifter in chief, who is the President of the United States, Joe Biden. He wants to destroy the Second Amendment. What are your thoughts about what he said last night?
Harris: Well, it is absolutely predictable that Biden and those that follow him, it’s hard to say mindset these days with Biden because I’m not sure he really has one. But they take these opportunities. TFA’s been working for almost 30 years now in Tennessee to work on Second Amendment issues to protect our rights.
And it’s sadly a fact that mass public shootings recur. And what’s even sadder is every time they occur, the progressive left uses that as an opportunity to push a gun control agenda rather than to pursue a legitimate study, an inquiry into why are we having these issues with violence and terrorism in our country.
Leahy: Yes, that’s exactly right. The grifter in chief last night, Joe Biden said, oh, the Second Amendment, it’s not absolute. I read the Second Amendment. To me, the text of the Second Amendment said the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Do you read it differently, John?
Harris: No, absolutely not. And I’ll tell you, it’s an interesting study in the law, as Michelle and I don’t know if she’s gotten to this component yet, but there’s actually case law in the 1930s and 1940s in this country.
And prior to that, there were Supreme Court opinions in Tennessee, even where the issue comes up about, well, what really does the Second Amendment mean? And in these cases, they were looking at the question of, well, what kinds of arms what does the term arms mean when they say the right to keep and bear arms?
And back before wokeism infected this country like cancer, the courts were saying and even the U.S. Department of Justice was saying that it was at that time beyond dispute that the term arms, as used in the Second Amendment, had specific reference to those kinds of weapons that your military, your infantryman, your soldiers would need to fight or defend the country.
The issue became in those cases, whether or not weapons, according to the Department of Justice, that were those in common use by the gangster, the pocket pistols, and things that had really no military value were within the scope of the Second Amendment.
So there was the debate then was what our arms and what guns are protected. And what was universally understood was all of the things that Biden talks about were the ones that were beyond question protected. And it was some of these other less utilitarian weapons that were questionable.
But Biden just doesn’t get it. And sadly, most of the modern press and sadly, most of the people in society that have grown up with our modern education systems and social media are even further removed from a true understanding.
Leahy: He had numerous, it’s too many proposals to, in essence, gut the Second Amendment. But a couple of elements, he said, remove the liability protection of gun manufacturers. That was one of them.
And the other was to limit the number of bullets that could be used in a gun. From what I heard, that would basically make virtually half the guns out there that are currently in use illegal. What are your thoughts?
Harris: Well, that is true. It’s the backdoor attack. If we can’t defeat the Second Amendment, let’s try to influence the well, let’s just call it the supply chain, just like he’s done with gas, food, and everything else so that things that we have an expectation of acquiring are unavailable.
Without banning them, they just can’t buy them. And so you do see that. And in my law practice, I represent a lot of gun dealers and manufacturers, and where at any one time I would normally have one or two getting license revocation hearings.
I’ve got almost 10 of those now. It’s just since the Biden administration came in. So there’s a substantial agenda being implemented by the federal government to influence the supply chain side of what we have access to.
Leahy: Tell us a little bit about the so-called red flag laws and what Biden proposed in that arena. I’m hearing that some of the sorts of the more “moderate Republicans” are open to more red flag laws. What is a red flag law and what is the impact of the proposed red flag laws that are out there?
Harris: Red flag laws are a horrible concept that clearly shouldn’t exist in this country. And what they generally mean is, let’s define or enumerate a list of circumstances where we think an individual might pose a risk.
And if those circumstances arise or exist, let’s give law enforcement the unilateral capacity to come into their property, into their home, into their protected areas, and take their guns away from them.
Now, there’s nothing about a red flag law, this is important to understand. And in contrast to that, Tennessee and other states have what’s called emergency committal procedures, which say if someone is an immediate risk to themselves or third parties, the government can, upon sworn statements of two or more doctors in Tennessee, take that person into custody for a very short period of time.
Typically less than two weeks for psychiatric evaluation to see if, in fact, they are a threat to themselves or others. That makes some sense because the threat in that instance is the individual. Just like the threat in Uvalde was the individual, the red flag laws, none of them take the person into custody or deal with the person.
The red flag laws take the item into custody and end up disarming people in the household who may have legitimate rights to those weapons, but they do nothing about dealing with the problem again, which is the person. What red flag laws do is they deal with the agenda, which is to get the guns into the hands of the government and then set up barricades to return them back to lawful owners.
Listen to the interview:
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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.
Photo “John Harris” by John Harris.
