Monday, June 8, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods With Bredesen Cowering on the Sidelines, Gunmen Demand Access to Schoolyards Next
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 5:03 AM
"I guess the issue for me was it seems this would have taken a very difficult, all-out effort," he told reporters. Well, we wouldn't want the governor to exert himself, now would we?
Even though he called guns in bars "an invitation to disaster," he said he had "bigger fish to fry" in passing the state budget. We think he was stifling a yawn at the time.
That means clear sailing for the National Rifle Association and its fanatical followers in the legislature. The governor won't put up any more fuss. Three gun bills still are on his desk. One allows guns in city parks. Unless the Metro Council votes to forbid it, licensed gunmen will stroll around the softball fields and playgrounds of Shelby Park before the summer ends. Isn't that a comforting thought?
Another bill lets drunken rednecks ride around in their pickups with loaded rifles and shotguns. We wouldn't want them to feel threatened. And yet another one, called the "Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act," purports to eliminate federal regulation of guns made in Tennessee. It won't really do that because the ATF says it won't, but whatever. We've already hurled ourselves down the rabbit hole here, so things make sense only if they don't.
Bredesen has already suggested he'll sign the guns-in-parks bill. He doesn't think it sounds all that dangerous.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee Firearms Association is ready to go for more. That's after assuring everyone they'd be satisfied with this year's slew of gun bills. Of course, they say that every year. Now, in an email to supporters, the association's John Harris says the Second Amendment absolutely demands that state law allow handguns on schoolyards too. He says guns in bars "is just the beginning."
Comments (14)
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Do you ever get tired of rewording the same story everyday? Move on brother... Your not in the majority... Stop crying about it and try to cure your ignorance...
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Where do you get the source for saying that TFA told anyone we would be content with what has passed this year? We have had a bill agenda for 10+ years and many of those issues, although not as high profile as the restaurants or parks, are still significant issues for responsible firearms owners.
Okay, my opinion on the issue of gun laws is irrelevant to this point. This is not the blog of some crackpot living in his mom's basement. Pith's affiliation with the Scene at least lends it an air of journalistic credibility. What's posted here carries a little more weight than what (insert blogger of your choice here) writes.
So when you write something like, "Another bill lets drunken rednecks ride around in their pickups with loaded rifles and shotguns," you greatly diminish your own journalistic credibility. That's a shame both for you and your readers. Obviously, drunk driving, among rednecks and non-rednecks alike, is illegal. Guns don't enter into it.
Sure, the intent was to be snarky and sarcastic. Most of Pith's contributors are intelligent enough to do snarky and sarcastic without making idiotic statements like that. This kind of nonsense drags everything else down and gives those crackpots in their mom's basement the ammunition they so desperately need to continue taking shots at you. Keep up the snark and sarcasm, but please try to maintain the standards.
I really think that is slander to say that "drunken rednecks running around with guns in there vehicles". You really are out of touch with reality. Why don't you go and stick your head in the sand.
What's more ... and regarding the city parks local prohibition provision ...
It would violate Tennessee's strong preemption law. Legislators can't just slip in an amendment allowing local municipalities to regulate the bearing of arms. Doing so violates pre-existing and firmly entrenched state law.
So which would prevail ... a recent amendment to appease nay-sayers, or the longstanding precedent of state preemption over firearm regulation?
Should the Metro pass a law banning lawful carry in parks, it will be challenged and defeated in court.
John Harris,
When the handgun carry law originally was passed, your legislative lapdogs said repeatedly that's all you guys wanted. The next year, they were introducing all these ridiculous bills and they've done it every year since. This year, Ron Ramsey and the rest of your legislative puppets told us that once guns-in-bars and gun-in-parks passed, that was it. No more. The gun freaks would be happy. The session's not even over, and you want more. That's my source of information.
Woods:
Some say turnabout is fair play. I don't know if that's true, but it's understandable. Year after year, the Brady Campaign, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Joyce Foundation, Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, Violence Policy Center, etc., and etc. support and introduce federal and state legislation to further infringe the right to arms.
I can't speak for Mr. Harris, but all that we are asking for is that the right to keep and bear arms not be infringed. It's pretty simple, really, and not too much to ask.
And your snarky comments of bigoted discrimination just don't resonate. I am a PhD-level scientist who lives and works in a densely urban area. I am not the typical redneck you so despise and malign.
Woods,
Who are John's "legislative lapdogs" and when did they ever mention TFA? Sounds like you really have to stretch things and to connect the dots. John asked you a specific question. Can you answer it? It appears you are being intentionally vague. I hope you aren't making things up.
The question again in care you missed it:
"Where do you get the source for saying that TFA told anyone we would be content with what has passed this year?"
This should be interesting...
Tygard to withdraw Council guns-in-restaurants bill
Monday, June 8, 2009 at 4:52pm
By Nate Rau
At-large Councilman Charlie Tygard will withdraw at the June 16 Council meeting his recently filed bill outlawing guns in Davidson County establishments which serve beer.
Tygard said he consulted the Metro Legal Department, which told him the legislation did not pass the legal litmus test. Tygard said the bill wouldn’t fly because it is pre-empted by state law established in the 1986. The law said local governments could not limit the right to bear arms, unless they already had a law on the books.
"Should the Metro pass a law banning lawful carry in parks, it will be challenged and defeated in court."
Carl in Chitown, for a "PhD level scientist," you surely don't do much research: The guns in parks bill that has already passed the legislature specifically gives cities and counties the option of banning guns in their local parks.
"I can't speak for Mr. Harris, but all that we are asking for is that the right to keep and bear arms not be infringed. It's pretty simple, really, and not too much to ask."
Again, no research on your part, Carly: The now famous Supreme Court ruling of last July (Heller) that all of you gun nuts like to cite endlessly as affirming your right to go armed wherever you damned well please said no such thing. It DID make the very important point (by a 5-4 split) that the 2nd Amendment does grant a a citizen an INDIVIDUAL right to bear arms, as opposed to a citizen in a militia. That was indeed a victory for you gun nuts.
But if you'd bother to read it (its entire text, plus the dissent is easily available online), you'd see that the ruling declares that that individual right is to keep a gun AT HOME. IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH CARRYING A GUN AROUND WITH YOU OUTSIDE OF YOUR CASTLE! In fact, the ruling specifically says that regulations that ban guns in "sensitive areas" like government buildings and other places are very legitimate.
So, you're going to have to wait for the next right-wing president to replace the current lineup with five certifiable gun nuts before the court rules that the 2nd Amendment means you can go anywhere you want with your piece.
Moral: Don't go to a gunfight with a knife, and don't come to a debate halfwitted.
I'mNOTCarl,
You have obviously looked at the issue more than most in your camp and that is commendable. But your rhetoric is simply more of the same. By and large, the states regulate their own gun laws. Every state that borders us has these laws on the books and no data whatsoever suggests that its a problem. The only thing that stopped this stuff from passing long ago was politicians not allowing it to be voted on (pretty anti democratic if you ask me).
Gun nut? No. This is more empty rhetoric from people who are conditioned to be afraid of inanimate pieces of machinery. I am educated and was raised in an anti gun household. It took me watching friends of mine have sawed off shotguns put to their heads that changed my point of view. Gobsmacked, as many might say...Funny, all these comments from idiots calling me "backwoods", "red neck", "right wing"...I just laugh because it doesn't come anywhere close to describing who I am. It merely strengthens my resolve because it couldn’t be more absurd (like most of the comments from the anti gun camp).
I have been a victim of gun violence and so have some of my friends. We were not in a place we shouldn’t have been...we were in Nashville restaurants.
Moral of the story: HCP holders have a great record at being responsible and most gun laws only affect the law abiding. Gun control ENABLES criminals. Please stop enabling criminals.
Please?
"Another bill lets drunken rednecks ride around in their pickups with loaded rifles and shotguns."
- Wow...Jeff, seriously? Are you getting paid by someone under the table to lie to you readers? What you assert would be legal is actually highly ILLEGAL.
You really should stop lying. It doesn't help your cause...perhaps that's why you guys keep losing?
In response to "ImNOTCarl":
1) I am suggesting that the provision authorizing local municipalities to ban the carry of arms in parks is inconsistent with Tennessee's entrenched preemption law. I also suggest that this inconsistency will be eventually solved in the courts, and they will come down on the side of established preemption law, and on the side of the constitution.
2) Speaking of comprehending Heller, all nine justices found that the right to arms is an individual right. The difference is that the four dissenters followed the sophisticated collective rights view ... which basically states the right is individual but only when enrolled in a state-authorized militia.
3) You are correct, in a narrow sense, that the SCOTUS overturned a ban on handguns in DC homes. You are right, the specific issue at play in the case was the keeping of guns on the home. But both of us can read that the right is to both keep arms and to bear them. And "to bear" means to carry them around with you. There is much juriceprudence to be developed, and it will develop.
Note that the majority also wrote:
"Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements [of the second amendment] together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner
dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed..."
Sir, you seem to misunderstand something rather fundamental. You are seeking to read the second amendment, and the Heller ruling, in the narrowest of possible terms that fits your view of how the world should work, or how you want it to work. But you have to see the bigger picture. The right to arms is not dependent on your opinion, and it is not dependent on democratic majority, nor is it dependent upon our laws. The right pre-exists, it is natural, and it is fundamental. This is not just about carrying guns in restaurants and bars. From the dawn of humankind, the "tool-making animal" (that's us) has always sought, made, and secured personal arms of some kind. Stones, pointy sticks, knapped flint, bows, arrows, as well as firearms. Humans owned and carried these things because they were practical, and because they were free to make their decisions, and because they had a fundamental right to self-preservation and the means to secure it. Today is no different, and in fact, our federal government recognized that the right to arms pre-existed our constitution ... our constitution simply commanded that the government may never infringe the right of the people to own and carry arms.
I am hardly half-witted, Sir. I see the big picture, and see an expansive right that is consistent with freedom and individual rights. I see the right as applicable only in the narrowest of places, such as Heller's "sentitive places" such as commercial airplanes, courtrooms, the White House, etc. You see the narrowest of picture ... as if you see your freedom (and mine!) as something operational only within the confines of what some authority allows you to do. That is anathema to our way of life, our philosophy, and our nation. We are not a nation of cowards and ninnies to be commanded in every behavior by a government we faithfully and naively believe to be benevolent and forever so. It's not about doing whatever the hell you want. It's about living together, in peace and mutual respect, as free people. That takes the punishment of miscreants who criminally misuse arms, or who exhibit any other behavior that is willfully dangerous to the public safety. We are free men and women, we are smart, we are responsible, and we use wisdom and restraint in our judgement.
Again ... all that we are demanding is that our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, in a way that is consistent with the command of the constitution. It's pretty simple, really, and not too much to ask. It's not about government "allowing" the right to carry arms in restaurants. It's about repealing infringements and restoring rights that are ours. But rather, you would carve out a little tiny square of the earth, one's home, and say "here ... you can keep and bear arms only within the confines of these four walls. And others like you might even deny the right in that little square, if they could get away wtih it. That's flatly ridiculous, Sir. The right to own and carry guns shall not be infringed. That is the command, and that is what we will settle for.
