Three Tennessee Republican lawmakers want Governor Bill Lee to “abandon” a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly, scheduled for later this year to focus on gun safety, calling it a “publicity stunt” that will incite the “national woke mob.”
Rep. Bryan Richey (R-Maryville), Rep. Ed Butler (R-Rickman), and Rep. Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) signed an open letter to Lee Wednesday saying any gun measures can be addressed during the regular session in January.
“Summoning legislators to Nashville to enact an unconstitutional ‘red flag’ law will not, as you suggest ‘strengthen public safety and preserve constitutional rights,” reads the letter posted to Twitter by Richey. “To the contrary, the General Assembly adamantly opposes — and refused to enact — measures that violate Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights, whether styled ‘order of protection’ legislation or any other euphemism.”
The letter reminded Lee that the legislature did not consider his gun safety legislation at the end of the last session. It said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson has said the legislature will “not pass any red flag law, period.” The lawmakers said they would not “violate” their oaths to the Constitution “for political expediency or to curry favor with special interests.”
“Your proposed special session, apparently calculated to pressure legislators to pass such a law, strikes us as an expensive, disruptive, futile, and counter-productive publicity stunt,” reads the letter. “The [Covenant School] tragedy would not have been averted by a ‘red flag’ law in any event. Your proposed special session is a solution in search of a problem.”
However, Democrats are “ready to get to work,” said Tennessee House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons in a statement.
“Tennesseans overwhelmingly support gun safety laws to better protect our children and communities and want legislative action,” Clemmons said. “Democrats agree and stand ready to get to work. As usual, the only thing standing in the way to public safety is the Republican supermajority.”
The GOP letter warns that a special session of left-wing activists will protest in Nashville and is in “service to the national woke mob that will descend on the Capitol.” All of it will “make the ‘Tennessee Three’ circus look like a dress rehearsal.” They claim “heavy security” will be needed to protect lawmakers from “unruly agitators.”
“There is no emergency, declared or otherwise, that justifies calling us back to work in August,” reads the letter. “The reason is a series of policy proposals that we, as a legislative body, deliberately — and prudently — chose to reject this session.”
