TFA Welcomes District 96 Candidate Jim Harrell 5/17/12

[Pat McGarrity]

(Please be patient if I’m late answering your e-mail. I’m way behind again!)

The Shelby County Chapter of the Tennessee Firearms Association will meet Thursday, 5/17/12 at 7:00 PM at Range USA:

http://www.rangeusa.com/

2770 Whitten Rd. in Memphis. Please support Range USA every chance you can - they support YOUR rights!

I am very pleased to announce that our guest speaker will be candidate for State Representative, Jim Harrell.

http://www.JimWorksForMe.com

His web site address says a lot about Jim! It’s still being updated from when he ran for the U.S. Congress, Tennessee District 9. Some of us with the Shelby TFA have met with Jim and I was impressed with his overall support of constitutional values. Jim is running in the Cordova area, District 96, where gun owners currently do not have any representation. That position is currently occupied by Rep. Steve McManus R-Cordova:

http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/hous ... s/h96.html

Rep. McManus is a member of the House Calendar & Rules Committee, the new graveyard for pro-gun legislation. Under the command of Gov. Haslam and Speaker Harwell, Rep. McManus was one of the committee members that prevented the voice of the people from being heard by killing our Safe Commute bill in that committee. That way, there was no recorded anti-gun vote on record. Although, we’re told by NRA sources that a no-vote, will be graded as a NO vote for NRA ratings.

This bill was opposed by large corporations such as FedEx, Baptist Hospitals, Bridgestone, Volkswagen and others. These corporations, unlike grass roots groups and small businesses, had the ability to funnel huge amounts of money to the politicians that killed this bill.

To quote TFA Executive Director, John Harris, this committee; “exceeded its jurisdiction because this committee is not charged with considering bills on the merits but only with the duty to move bills assigned to it from other committees in an orderly schedule to be heard on the floor. See Rule 49 of the House Rules. The conduct of the members of the Calendar committee who voted to refuse to allow the bill, a bill with 30 sponsors, to go the floor for consideration on the merits by all legislators is an obvious and blatant abuse of discretion by those members which should not be tolerated lightly”.

I believe most gun owners are pro-business also. I’m not aware of any small business opposition to Safe Commute. The point is; legislators are the ones that asked for their jobs, and in the House are called “Representatives”. If they chose big money over their constituents, and to obey their party masters, then, they should have the courage to stand by their choices and put their vote on record. We actually made more progress with Democrat Speaker Naifeh, than with this current crew in Nashville. The worst part is, in my humble opinion, is when the politicians that betrayed us show up for photo ops at gun ranges and tell us that’s rain running down our backs. Even those who opposed Safe Commute have also been robbed of their representation.

By the way, this same basic death of the bill was executed by Lt. Governor Ramsey in the Senate. He was the only candidate ever officially endorsed by TFA in our history when he ran for Governor in 2010 and was more than happy to accept our hard work for him and several thousand dollars from our PAC. I never imagined we’d find a knife in our back with Ron Ramsey wielding it.

This is why we have primaries and this is why we welcome Jim Harrell next week.

I look forward to seeing you there. Although we always welcome new TFA Members, you DO NOT have to be a member to attend our meetings.


In Liberty,

Pat McGarrity

In Your Service - Shelby County TFA Director


“A free lunch is only found in mousetraps.”