News Briefly
Shooting off
A blistering, if possibly libelous, report from the Washington-based Violence Policy Center has accused a Middle Tennessee gun manufacturer of selling arms to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. The rather specious report claimed without any evidence that Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc. in Murfreesboro sold Al Qaeda 25 50-caliber sniper rifles. But Ronnie Barrett, the company’s owner, says that he’s not allowed to sell to anyone other than private clients, the U.S. government, or nations approved by the State Department. If his rifles wound up in the hands of bin Laden, he says, it’s only because the U.S government, his biggest client, sold them to the network during the 1980s.
A book ban
Surprised by the news that it could no longer use the state Capitol for security reasons, officials with Humanities Tennessee made last-minute arrangements to shift its Southern Book Festival event speeches to the Nashville Public Library. Library officials were thrilled by the development, hopeful that the move to their building might be permanent. Meanwhile, some criticized the Sundquist administration’s decision to close the Capitol, arguing that the sold-out Titans game just down the street would be a more likely terrorist target.
No deal
The Nashville Sounds might not move to Hendersonville after all. The Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce announced it had ended talks with the minor league baseball team after Sounds officials said Hendersonville's $35 million stadium proposal devoted too much revenue to stadium bonds and not enough to the team. Sounds officials are still hoping for another stadium proposal from Williamson County and are considering the possibility of leaving Middle Tennessee for a different market altogether.
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