Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

Tennessee Department of Safety has started sending out letters telling firearms instructors that "effective immediately" they are going to be required to complete and fill out a "roster" that has to be faxed to the Department of Safety within 24 hours of the class. http://www.state.tn.us/safety/forms/HGs ... 862408.pdf

This new roster collects information concerning the weapons used in the class including the owner's name and the serial number. Other forms filed with TDOS (including the certification form) has the make, model and caliber of the weapon.

Nothing in the statutes authorize or direct the Department of Safety to collect or require this information.

I would like to gauge the public response to the collection of this information and whether it enables TDOS or the state to start collection records detailing firearms owners and at least some of the specific weapons owned by them.

If you oppose this change, feel free to contact TDOS AND your state legislators.

TDOS contact information in on the TDOS web site

http://www.state.tn.us/safety/handgunmain.htm

The main contact, according to the state's web site is:

Contact Us:
Lisa Knight, Manager
1150 Foster Avenue
Nashville, TN 37243
(615) 253-5221
866-849-3548 (toll-free)

This is in no way the correct thing for the state to be doing, regardless of the legality. Personally I can't see this as being legal.

I would suggest renting a gun from the range where you take the class. Shoot your own firearm plenty but shoot the qualification portion of the class with a rental... That will give the state lots of good information!

Looks like pushing for a flat out ban on any form of database is in need now as well.

email sent to staff at Legislature indicates serial number will be removed from the form.
This is C&P of body of text, (MODS, I can forward email to you.)

********
Good afternoon,

We have been contacted by numerous constituents complaining of the following:

"The Tennessee Department of Safety (TDOS) is currently sending letters to all firearms instructors requiring them to complete and return a copy of a Handgun Safety School Class Roster within 24 hours of the completion of a handgun permit certification class, “effective immediately.” This new roster requires a student to provide information concerning the name of the firearm owner, the name of the student using the firearm, as well as the make, model, and serial number of firearms used. Currently, there are no statutes that authorize the TDOS to collect or require this information. Simply put, this is a backdoor, de facto gun registration scheme! Remember, registration is the first step to potential firearms confiscations."

We have contacted the Dept. of Safety and Lisa Knight, the Director of the Handgun Permit Department has assured us they will be revising the form in question to address the concerns many constituents are having. Some of the detailed information such as serial number will be omitted to better protect the privacy of handgun carriers.

Please see the following statement from Lisa Knight, to be followed by a formal statement:

"We are removing the serial # off the form as well as the part of the form that ask who owned the gun. The roster will still be required to show the students name, signature, TN Driver license number, test scores, certificate number and the date the class was completed. This is in part due to an audit finding."

Lisa Knight
Department of Safety
Handgun Unit
1150 Foster Ave.
Nashville TN 37210
Phone: (615) 251-5330
Fax: (615) 532-3056
Lisa.Knight@state.tn.us

We hope this information is helpful when responding to constituent complaints.

Thank you.
***************

I checked a few minutes ago, the form still has serial number on it.......

Do we need to start contacting legislators, or is it too early ? (I just found out at the time of this post.,)

I think that as a grassroots movement we need to be contacting our legislators reminding them that the Republicans have been stating for years that they would support practically all of the issues that we have been seeking since 1996 including confidentiality of gun owner records.

The issue of the TDOS is just another example of a state agency, independent of its intent, coming into possession of information regarding gun owners and their weapon(s) from which a database could be compiled and/or from which - as we saw when I obtained Jimmy Naifeh's TDOS records - information concerning specific firearms ownership could be ascertained.

Particularly with Obama, Pelosi, Reed and others in control of the federal government we do not know what lies on the road ahead but its not blue skies as pertains to gun owners. Now it is more important than ever to push hard on state legislators to take all steps possible to protect gun owners not only from TDOS, TWRA and other state agencies (as well as local governments) but also to start standing up from a "STATES' Rights" perspective and demand that the federal government back off, back down and limit itself to the express powers granted to it in the Constitution. For too long now, the states have let the federal government simply assume power and we as voters have not held the state legislators and governors accountable for this abdication of power to the federal government. Now, particularly, now, we have threats from without and within and our state governments must reclaim the authority they have as states and do so, in this context, to help protect the citizens of the state.