The Tennessee Legislature ended its 2 year term of the 111th General Assembly last week after an all night session that few citizens were allow to witness in person. Has it been a good year for the 2nd Amendment in Tennessee? Clearly no.

TFA will do a full report on this Legislative session as soon as the last few bills which were passed are either signed by the governor, allowed to become law without the governor’s signature or vetoed (not expected).

In sum, 7 bills appear to have been passed by both the House and Senate. Three of the bills create or expand “special classes” of citizens who either get their handgun permits at the cost and on the backs of taxpayers or they create special “privileges” for certain categories of civilian handgun permit holders (generally government employees who are allowed to carry firearms as civilians in places where other permit holders are prohibited). One bill has to do with teacher licensing. Three of the bills have to do with hunting related topics.

None of the substantive bills that would have removed or rolled back infringements on the rights protected by the 2nd Amendment and declared as a matter of constitutional law to be free from government “infringement” passed the legislature.

Interestingly, the GOP dominated Senate did pass one bill (in March 2019) that never passed in the House. It was a completely Democrat sponsored bill which addressed the procedure for expungements.

In contrast, the GOP dominated House passed 8 bills which the Senate did not address at all on the Senate Floor. One of the bills that the House passed with the Senate Judiciary intentionally killed by not even voting on it was HB2660/SB2527 (Rep. Todd and Sen. Stevens) which would have materially improved Tennessee’s existing statute on civil immunity related to self-defense matters. Rep. Chris Todd worked very hard to get this bill moved through the system and passed in the House. On the other hand, there was no material evidence that Sen. John Stevens (who is being challenged for re-election) did anything to bring the bill to the Senate floor.

Once again, the Tennessee Legislature is awarded the "Goose Egg" award for its collective efforts to repeal or reduce infringements on our rights as protected by the 2nd Amendment with special recognition going to the Senate this year.