GRIM REAPER OF GUN RIGHTS STRIKES AGAIN!

[Pat McGarrity]

Please see John's note following the Tennessean article on Anti-Gun Speaker Naifeh.

Tennessee Firearms Association, Inc.
Legislative Action Committee

Well, so much for the NRA and Naifeh making up.....

News reports across the state are heralding Speaking Naifeh's swing vote killing several important Second Amendments bills in the House Judiciary's Criminal Practices Subcommittee on March 19. The Tennessean (Nashville's main daily newspaper) reports



By THEO EMERY
Staff Writer

House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh made an unusual visit Wednesday to a subcommittee hearing to cast votes that killed several handgun bills, including one that would have allowed diners to carry guns into restaurants.

Naifeh, who can cast votes in any House committee or subcommittee of his choosing, voted in three roll call votes that helped defeat bills in the Criminal Practice Subcommittee, as well as in a voice vote that defeated a fourth bill.

The votes killed a bill that would have permitted faculty and staff at public schools to carry handguns, one that would have allowed handguns in state parks and one that would have allowed people voluntarily committed to mental hospitals to get handgun licenses.

The fourth bill would have allowed guns in restaurants. The sponsor, Rep. Curry Todd, a Collierville Republican, said he was disappointed the bill died, and promised to bring it back next year. A similar bill, which has passed in the Senate and was recently the subject of a humorous spot on a late night comedy show, was deferred for two weeks. After the bills were voted down, Republicans criticized Naifeh, D-Covington, in a press release, saying that the committee was "stacked" for the vote and accusing him of "brazenly political efforts to scuttle commonsense rights for gun owners."

"I am disappointed that the Democratic leadership continually eats away at our most basic rights," House Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada, R-College Grove, said in the statement.

Addison Pate, the spokesman for the House Democrats, responded that "good legislation passes, bad legislation fails, regardless of the partisan side that the sponsor may be on."

Two other bills — one that would make applications for handgun carry permits confidential, the other that would make it a felony offense to publish carry permit information — passed a Senate committee Wednesday and are headed to floor votes. The House versions were delayed two weeks in subcommittees.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 009/NEWS02

It might be that the sentiment that significant Second Amendment bills wills not pass in Tennessee until Speaker Naifeh is no longer Speaker of the House is right on point. That means that either i) the Democrats have to be taken out of control, ii) a coalition of conservative Democrats must cross party lines and build a coalition with Republicans to elect a speaker other than Naifeh or iii) Naifeh's tenure in office needs to end. Thank goodness its an election year and write in ballots are legal in Tennessee.

John Harris
Executive Director

www.tennesseefirearms.com