A groundswell of students and parents showed up to the state Capitol Monday morning to oppose legislation enabling staff or faculty to carry concealed firearms on school property. The bill passed the Tennessee Senate on April 9 and currently awaits a vote in the House. Opponents — including parents of children who survived the Covenant School shooting a year ago — are calling on Republican leadership to prevent its passage.
“I’m certain my son is alive today because his teacher stayed in the classroom and kept him and his classmates safe,” said Melissa Alexander, whose son survived the Covenant School shooting. “That’s where we need our teachers. I urge the House not to lift HB1202 from the desk and work with us parents to craft legislation that does not involve arming teachers.”
Alexander and Mary Joyce, another parent of a Covenant School survivor, held a press conference criticizing the legislation just after 9 a.m. Both described Republicans’ efforts to arm teachers as a misguided and irresponsible approach to school safety. Closed-door meetings with Gov. Bill Lee and House Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) last week delayed Alexander and Joyce’s public media appearance, which was initially scheduled for April 8, a day before the Senate passed the legislation.
Students rally against bill that would allow teachers to carry concealed firearms in schools
“We are sharing some very personal details about what our family has experienced and what we’re going through as a community, and it is frustrating sometimes not to feel heard — like we’re screaming underwater,” Joyce told reporters. “Then to sit in the Senate and see such a reckless bill passed without what feels like any regard to neighbors and folks in their backyard, what we’ve actually gone through.”
Students met at Church Street Park and marched to the Capitol steps around 10 a.m. led by organizers from Hume-Fogg Academic High School. Youth-led opposition to Tennessee’s lax gun laws has become a familiar sight at the Capitol, where marches, rallies and vigils have shadowed state legislative chambers since the March 2023 Covenant School shooting that killed six people, including three 9-year-old children. Student speakers from Hume-Fogg and Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School headlined the event. Members of the crowd included students from Meigs Middle Magnet School, Hillsboro High School and Merrol Hyde Magnet School.
“My government is actively working to try and keep people out of politics,” one student told the crowd. “They’re working to dismantle democracy, and we cannot let this happen. We are not just here to participate in one walkout. We are here to let our legislators know that we are done being complacent and our cries will be heard. We will not let the issue of gun violence be twisted in order to increase the number of guns in our schools and in our community.”
Rep. Gloria Johnson speaks at a rally against a bill allowing teachers to carry firearms in schools
Covenant School parent Sarah Shoop Neumann and school board member Erin O’Hara Block also addressed the crowd. Current and prospective Democratic lawmakers flanked the group, including state Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville), state Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) and state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville). Maryam Abolfazli, a Democrat running for the U.S. House, and Luis Mata, a candidate for the state House, both emphasized voting in brief remarks to the crowd.
Clemmons tells the Scene that, while the bill’s fate in the House is unknown, a slew of amendments will ensure floor debate before it comes up for a vote. House lawmakers, including Clemmons, have tacked on 10 amendments that restrict the law to certain areas of the state, further regulate who can carry guns at school and require additional layers of administrative authorization. An amendment by Rep. Jason Powell (D-Nashville), for example, would require school principals to notify parents or guardians of faculty or staff carrying guns on school property.
