Tennessee has had a Republican super majority in the Legislature since 2010. It has had 2 Republican governors in that time. It has seen year after year of the failure to enact “constitutional carry”. This year is no different. Not a single strong 2nd Amendment law passed in 2020 in Tennessee.

There were at least 2 good bills on permitless carry (excluding the poorly conceived bill that Bill Lee proposed which was not constitutional carry but was only a qualified exception to criminal charge for illegal possession of a handgun). There was a bill that would have significantly increased civil immunity protections. There was a bill that would have prohibited discrimination in the rental of publicly owned venues. There were numerous good 2nd Amendment bills. Did they become law? No.

So what did pass?

Public Chapter 559 (SB1571/HB2023) by Sen. Yager and Rep. Windle amends Tennessee law to allow the Secretary of State to issue state identification cards in inmate relations coordinators and correctional officers to allow them to carry firearms. This bill does nothing to advance the rights of citizens as protected by the 2nd Amendment.

Public Chapter 681 (SB2066/HB2590) by Sen. Lundberg and Rep. Littleton allows elected county or city officials and county attorneys who have civilian handgun permits to carry in public buildings where other civilians could be charged with a Class E felony for carrying their handguns. This bill creates special privileges for certain classes of citizens.

Public Chapter 799 (SB2292/HB2492) by Sen. Bowling and Rep. VanHuss amends the wildlife resources laws so that wildlife enforcement officers are prohibited from making a “search or inspection of a person’s dwelling, place of business, or interior of an automobile without a search warrant.” It was watered down from the original bill which prohibited TWRA wildlife officers from entering any private property (land) without a search warrant.

Public Chapter 737 (SB2300/HB2494) by Sen. Jackson and Rep. VanHuss allows a handicapped hunter (certain qualifications) to designate one person (and only one person) per year to assist them for hunting or fishing purposes. The assistant does not have to have a hunting or fishing license and cannot hunt or fish while acting as an assistant.

Public Chapter 746 (SB2533/HB2414) by Sen. Southerland and Rep. Eldridge expands the categories of family members who can hunt on family owned farms by including the spouse of a child.

Public Chapter 804 (SB2737/HB2333) by Sen. Bell and Rep. Howell places the financial burden on taxpayers for issuing lifetime handgun permits for retired law enforcement officers who served at least 10 years.

As these bills indicate, none of them are strong 2nd Amendment bills. None of them help the majority or even a significant minority of citizens. None of them help with the problems of protecting private property from looters and rioters.

It is perplexing if not entirely unacceptable that a Legislature controlled by a n overwhelming super majority of Republicans who “claim” to be strong 2nd Amendment supporters cannot pass true constitutional carry.

It is unacceptable that they refuse to even put a bill for true constitutional carry on the floor that other states would examine and go “Tennessee did it right and better than us”

It is unacceptable that 17 other states, including 4 that border Tennessee, already have true constitutional carry. It is unacceptable that 30 other states, including every state touching Tennessee except Georgia, already has permitless open carry.

If you agree it is unacceptable, then the power is in your hands as citizens and voters to identify the legislators and governors who are the problem for these failures and replace them and, if you decide to do so, you cannot trust the endorsements of a certain national group because in several instances those endorsements are for incumbent Republicans who are the very ones who are responsible for some of these failures.

You can get the detailed PDF TFA annual report on the TFA's news post.