Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

I hesitated on starting a new thread on this bill but I feel the other one has become a bit worn.

Tomorrow, May 3rd, the House Judiciary committee is scheduled to hear the bill again as a result of Josh Evans pulling the bill off the House floor following an attempt by Eddie Bass to amend the bill back to its origional form.

We need as big a show of support at that hearing as we can possibly muster. I am planning, (God willing and the creek don't rise) to be there along with a couple of others from Shelby County. We are in contact with several members of the committee to get our names on the list of speakers. I know this being a weekday, it impacts the ability of many to be there but if you can, I am asking you to be there.

It is being reported that the business community will be there in force.

The opponents to what we want to accomplish still have several options to prevent the bill from moving forward if any attempts are made to amend the bill back to its origional form so I am being honest in saying that I don't give us a lot of chance of being successful. BUT we HAVE to let them know that we are watching and we WILL hold them accountable.

The existance of the major campaign funding bill that is working it's way through the legislature, I believe is a major factor who's influence on THIS bill has only recently been realized. The campaign funding bill, if passed, will free up a lot of funding options to businesses that will allow them to pour a lot of money into the campaigns of political candidates. I feel the left or liberal leaning Republicans are pandering to the business and corporate lobby in order to be found favorable with them during the next election.

If you can not be there, please take the time to send a last barrage of emails and phone calls to the committee members.

Rick Womick is my rep and I have sent him an email.

Sent one using the link in TFALAC email. Awesome way to ensure everyone involved gets a piece of my mind.

Just hope they don't have emails coming from that destination flagged as "SPAM" or "auto filtered" to delete.

I guess I'll find out once I get a reply, or several.

If I get no reply, then I guess they'll all manually get a piece of my mind, for two reasons.

Depends on the the Legislator me thinks, I have received a response from Sen. Stacy Campfield per each of e-mails sent to him via this method, (not that I liked what I heard, but at least I did hear back, which is more than I can say for any other member on the list).

As I type this, I am in The House Judiciary Committee meeting. The agenda is long and I have no way of knowing when this bill will come up. There are two others here with me from Memphis and one from Jackson along with John Harris. I don't recognize any others who may be here.

We have been advised that we will be able to speak. I do not know if Eddie Bass will attempt to introduce again his amendment or not, I guess we will see.

I as well have wrote to all the commitee members by way of e-mail, But to no avail. except 1 reply from Sen. Campfield. who is not my Sen. I am still waiting to here from Mike sparks my actuall Rep. I did send a nice reminder to my rep. Mike Sparks and Rep. Evans to this effect, I am an active registered Voter and that they should remeber when the P.A.C. money runs out I would still be here to Vote them out of thier office as I was the Voter whom put them in! P.S. Make your Vote count " Mine Will" as well

Just read John's email. So much for that, eh?

Thanks to all who put in more effort than even the bill's sponsor. That had to have been a long ride home Sky King.

At least we found out who a few of our fair-weather friends were.

Sorry to be so late with an update. Worriedman has pretty well summed it up. All while being assured we would be able to speak, it was not untill the lunch recess that we found out that the bill had been sent back to the sub-committee. Since there will be no more sub-committee meetings, this essentially kills the bill for this year.

From the beginning of the hearing, we all were watching for other concerned persons such as Josh Evans himself or other interested parties such as corporate lobbiests. None ever appeared. Several of us attempted to contact Josh Evans by phone and text but we never got a response. As the hearing moved on, HB2021 was nunber seven on the agenda but they passed right over it.

It seems the political manuvering was by design to keep the bill from ever comming up. We were not told untill the lunch recess that the bill had been sent back to the sub-committee. I spoke with Barret Rich before the hearing and expressed my feelings that I would rather see this bill die than have the neutered, watered down version as it is now pass. He was totally surprised and couldn't understand why I would oppose SOME progress rather than none. The problem is that large corporations will not change their policy based on this bill. It accomplishes nothing.

Barret Rich, Vance Dennis and the other RINOs need to feel the heat for failed campaign promises from the conservative base that put them in office.

It is still my contention that it all boils down to money. The Republican leadership does not want this bill to come to a vote on the floor. If it ever makes it to the floor, many feel it would pass. What they are doing is nothing less than what Jimmy Naifeh did.

At this time I would like to thank everybody who called, wrote emails and took time to get involved in this issue. There is no way any of the members of The General Assembly can say they did not hear from us. Now it is time to let them know how upset we are that they have not kept their word and tell them that come election time, it is US who pull the lever in the booth, NOT FedEx, UPS, General Tire, Bridgestone Firestone.

As Sam's comments evidence, many are quite disappointed in the General Assembly which, this year, means we are really disappointed in the Republican caucus because the Republicans are in complete numerical control of the General Assembly.

While I feel that there is a solid core of the Republicans and several specific Democrats who remain true and supportive of the conservative platforms and the rights of citizens, I have concluded that a large number in leadership and others in the caucus are more concerned with "business" financial support which means that they are putting their individual interests in re-election to office ahead of doing what is right or even what was promised.

I think that it is clear that the bill would have passed on the floor with bipartisan support in a format that we wanted. However, there are many Republicans, in the fashion of Beth Harwell, who would have probably voted against it. Reportedly, some of those Republicans are pretending to be true 2nd Amendment supporters but I feel that the evidence is mounting that this alleged allegiance is more to garner votes rather than as a core conviction.

For example, it has been heard in the halls that the Republican leadership, particularly in the House, want to go through this 2 year cycle and get this large block of freshman re-elected before they are required to make a public vote on firearms issues - a protectionist mindset geared toward political power rather than constitutional stewardship. Indeed, if you look at their actions on other legislation (like the AT&T legislation which has raised materially the costs of basic phone services in rural Tennessee, the acceptance of passing class-based legislation on the right of self-defense, and even the misrepresentation and passage of "tort control" which will impair your constitutional rights to a jury trial) evidence that the Republicans are all to happy to pass some controversial legislation so long as it is legislation that is somewhat either favorable accepted by the news media or simply misunderstood by the news media.

The plain and simple conclusion is that with huge numerical margins in both houses, the Republicans - as a party and caucus - are refusing to and clearly unwilling to push forward with self-defense, 2nd Amendment, hunting or even basic civil rights legislation. They wanted your support to get control but now we are being treated as the unwanted step-children of the political spectrum.

2012 is a year that should be feared by incumbents other than Obama and it is going to be the job of Tennessee's citizens to have a clear memory of those who were spineless and refused to carry forward the fight to remove infringements on basic constitutional rights.

Points to ponder:

The sweeping change of Democrat to Republican dominance in the House was a result of a Conservative wave of action on the part of "grassroots" work by the general public.

What possible mindset could possibly be used to intimate that a move back to "Moderate" (really "Liberal") policy on the part of the current Majority Leadership would be of benefit in the next election cycle?

Governmental strengthening of the ability of criminal activity by determining "stress free" work zones for the bad guys seem so very counter intuitive to the "2nd Amendment" support espoused by all of the new Republican Legislators in the last election cycle.

That is why I think the Leadership of the House wanted to keep the discussion muted, no foul no blame so to speak.

It is an insult to the Citizen's intelligence.

This in large part boils down to the questions for the grassroots conservatives of what do we do now?

1) Do you re-elect those now in power who courted our votes?

2) Do you elect the opposition party?

3) Do you identify and support a primary challenger?

No matter how you answer these questions, now or in the future, what is clear is that the work from the last decade has not produced good fruit in 2010 and that the garden must be weeded and cultivated now to try to improve the crop in 2012.

My, my...it seems like almost everyone that voted to table Bass' amendment has a slightly different version or spin. At least, the Reps I corresponded with (Lundberg voted to table, Campbell was PNV) had stories that dont quite match up with the email from Mr. Haynes. Yes, it is true that the libs such as Naifeh, Sotany, et al voted for Bass's amendment...but in the current House makeup, they SHOULDN'T have the votes on the floor to defeat the bill as amended, should they? It is also true that a number of 2A supporters (K Williams, Bass, Todd) voted for Bass' amendment - how does Mr Haynes propose to explain away his apparent lack of support for those votes, when their party SHOULD have the votes to carry it forward regardless?

People, think for a moment.

The Evans' bill (HB2021) with the Judiciary amendment gave only immunity to the employers. It did not protect any employees from termination or criminal prosecution. Period. The bill was amended by the Republicans in the Judiciary because they would not support the original intent of the bill which was to protect employees from termination. Joshua Evans went along with this. He told the TFA chapter in Nashville last month that he agreed to the amendment and obtained additional Republican sponsors (who would not support the original bill) when he agreed that he would not move the bill forward in the House if it was amended to protect employees. The Republicans were getting heavy lobbying from business lobbyists and one must presume that this lobbying either had "carrots" or financial ties for PAC or other campaign support.

All these excuses boil down to this. Joshua Evans and several Republicans had reached an agreement that the employee protection objective that we were pushing for would not have a chance at a floor vote. Thus, Rep. Bass's amendment is claimed to be a killing amendment only because a significant group of Republicans had reached an agreement that if the bill was amended on the House floor to protect employees that it would be killed or referred back to Judiciary. Keep in mind, there are 64 Republicans. They could do whatever they wanted and the fact is that they agreed among themselves that they would rather give immunity to businesses than to give protections to the right of citizens to provide for their own self-defense while commuting. It is what I keep talking about - the sellout of the Republican caucus to the demands of business even if it means rejecting legislation to remove infringements on fundamental human rights.

I will state that I know Rep. Eddie Bass pretty well and that he did not by any stretch of the imagination propose this amendment for the purpose of killing a bill that would protect citizens. Rep. Bass wanted to pass a bill that would protect employees and was working to put the bill back in that format because he felt that the votes (between some Republicans and Democrats) were there to actually enact protections for employees.

Any legislator who claims they voted to table the Bass amendment because it would kill the bill is conceding that the Republican caucus had reached an agreement that they would rather kill a bill that would protect employees than to allow a recorded floor vote to prove that the Republican caucus in the House was unwilling to protect self defense rights of employees because "Big Business" had demanded that the Republican caucus not pass this legislation.. The Republican caucus was doing what big business wanted - not what was right to protect the individual employees/citizens to be secure in their right of self-defense.

To the extent that those Republicans who entered into this accord with business can be identified, and we can start with the 33 who voted to table the Bass amendment, they need to be admonished that Tennessee's citizens, gun owners and handgun permit holders are unhappy with these shenanigans and that, if necessary, primary alternatives will be sought out.

How stupid do they think we are? Perhaps, frankly, its not that they think us stupid but merely the belief that we are less important to their re-election efforts than the support and financial resources of business interests.

Things like this are why pro-gun people wind up voting for Democrats, or just not showing up at all. I wish the Republicans would get it into their heads and stop screwing up a nice majority.

This groundswell of disgust at being abandoned by the current Republican Party is not just the feeling of those who are in the forefront of firearms legislation advocacy with the TFA. I polled the Leadership of the 8th Congressional District Tea Party Coalition (I am a founding, voting member, we never sanction or oppose an issue without unanimous consent) prior to my trip to Nashville on Tuesday, and posed the question to them if they would support our interest related to HB 2021. I received 100% endorsement from this group. It should be noted that that this assembly of Tea Party activist were directly involved in defeating Roy Herron in his attempt to take his cousin's (John Tanner) Federal Representative seat. The groups making up our coalition are Tennesseans for Liberty (Madison County), We the People (Tipton County), Humphreys County Tea Party, 9.12 Project / Tea Party Dickson County, Stewart County Tea Party, Gibson County Patriots, Volunteers for Freedom Tea Party (Henry County), Benton County Tea Party, Jackson Madison County Tea Party.

I suggest that these Legislators contact Herron and ask how insignificant the patronage or lack of favor of this coalition is.

A fair point, I hadn't considered the TEA Party. They might make some very useful allies in some areas.

I think it is a stretch to Call Rep. Rich a RINO. I talked in depth with Rep Rich about the bill to allow citizens with permits to carry at their place of work. We talked for over an hour about all the ins and outs of the bill. Make no mistake he wants for citizens to be able to carry everywhere but unless I am mistaken he was not made king for a day and has to work to get the best he can get while convincing a majority of representatives, senators and a governor.