Gun lobby leaders, like state Sen. Stacey Campfield and Tennessee Firearms Association director John Harris, are
keeping a stiff upper lipand playing down the damage done to their cause by Rep. Curry Todd’s arrest. But at Internet forums, gun lovers themselves are distraught—outraged at Todd, their one-time hero, for wrecking their credibility and uniformly pessimistic about expanding the right to carry anytime in the near future.
“They'll use this to beat us like a red-headed step-child and I don't know of anything we could say that would matter,” one commenter wrote.
What’s more, Todd’s arrest exacerbated the gun lobby’s anger at House Speaker Beth Harwell and other Republicans in the legislature. In their first year in unassailable control of state government, Republicans did nothing to expand Second Amendment rights for fear of offending independent voters who think the gun lobby is crazy and dangerous. In their website comments, gun owners are tarring Harwell, et al. as squishes for refusing to let them carry their weapons wherever they please in the state. Harwell voted against the guns-in-bars bill that Todd championed.
“Anybody who voted for Harwell as speaker needs to go this time,” another commenter said. “We need a strong real conservative not some RINO in the speaker’s seat.”
Here are more comments from the websites of the Tennessee Gun Owners and Tennessee Firearms Association:
