Current:Home > FinanceTennessee legislature passes bill allowing teachers to carry concealed guns -Mastery Money Tools
Tennessee legislature passes bill allowing teachers to carry concealed guns
View
Date:2025-04-15 06:34:39
Protesters chanted "Blood on your hands" at Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.
The 68-28 vote in favor of the bill sent it to Republican Gov. Bill Lee for consideration. If he signs it into law, it would be the biggest expansion of gun access in the state since last year's deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville.
Members of the public who oppose the bill harangued Republican lawmakers after the vote, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared.
Four House Republicans and all Democrats opposed the bill, which the state Senate previously passed. The measure would bar disclosing which employees are carrying guns beyond school administrators and police, including to students' parents and even other teachers. A principal, school district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to let staff carry guns.
Under the bill passed Tuesday, a worker who wants to carry a handgun would need to have a handgun carry permit and written authorization from the school's principal and local law enforcement. They would also need to clear a background check and undergo 40 hours of handgun training. They couldn't carry guns at school events at stadiums, gymnasiums or auditoriums.
The proposal presents a starkly different response to The Covenant School shooting than Lee proposed last year. Republican legislators quickly cast aside his push to keep guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
A veto by Lee appears unlikely since it would be a first for him and lawmakers would only need a simple majority of each chamber's members to override it.
"What you're doing is you're creating a deterrent," the bill's sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said before the vote. "Across our state, we have had challenges as it relates to shootings."
Republicans rejected a series of Democratic amendments, including parental consent requirements, notification when someone is armed, and the school district assuming civil liability for any injury, damage or death due to staff carrying guns.
"My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, hold our state at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry," Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said. "It is morally insane."
In the chaos after the vote, Democratic and Republican lawmakers accused each other of violating House rules but only voted to reprimand Jones for recording on his phone. He was barred from speaking on the floor through Wednesday.
It's unclear if any school districts would take advantage if the bill becomes law. For example, a Metro Nashville Public Schools spokesperson, Sean Braisted, said the district believes "it is best and safest for only approved active-duty law enforcement to carry weapons on campus."
About half of the U.S. states in some form allow teachers or other employees with concealed carry permits to carry guns on school property, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun control advocacy group. Iowa's governor signed a bill that the Legislature passed last week creating a professional permit for trained school employees to carry at schools that protects them from criminal or civil liability for the use of reasonable force.
In Tennessee, a shooter indiscriminately opened fire in March 2023 at The Covenant School — a Christian school in Nashville — and killed three children and three adults before being killed by police.
Despite subsequent coordinated campaigns urging significant gun control measures, lawmakers have largely refused. They dismissed gun control proposals by Democrats and even by Lee during regular annual sessions and a special session, even as parents of Covenant students shared accounts of the shooting and its lasting effects.
Tennessee passed a 2016 law allowing armed school workers in two rural counties, but it wasn't implemented, according to WPLN-FM.
Tennessee Republicans have regularly loosened gun laws, including a 2021 permit-less carry law for handguns backed by Lee.
The original law allowed residents 21 and older to carry handguns in public without a permit. Two years later, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti struck a deal amid an ongoing lawsuit to extend eligibility to 18- to 20-year-olds.
Meanwhile, shortly after the shooting last year, Tennessee Republicans passed a law bolstering protections against lawsuits involving gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers. Lawmakers and the governor this year have signed off on allowing private schools with pre-kindergarten classes to have guns on campus. Private schools without pre-K already were allowed to decide whether to let people bring guns on their grounds.
They have advanced some narrow gun limitations. One awaiting the governor's signature would involuntarily commit certain criminal defendants for inpatient treatment and temporarily remove their gun rights if they are ruled incompetent for trial due to intellectual disability or mental illness.
Another bill that still needs Senate approval would remove the gun rights of juveniles deemed delinquent due to certain offenses, ranging from aggravated assault to threats of mass violence, until the age of 25.
- In:
- School Shootings
- Tennessee
- Guns
veryGood! (4)
Related
- Questlove charts 50 years of SNL musical hits (and misses)
- Gen V Star Chance Perdomo Dead at 27 After Motorcycle Accident
- An inclusive eclipse: How people with disabilities can experience the celestial moment
- The Bachelor’s Joey and Kelsey Reveal They’ve Nailed Down One Crucial Wedding Detail
- Why members of two of EPA's influential science advisory committees were let go
- Police fatally shoot Florida man in Miami suburb
- Iowa and LSU meet again, this time in Elite Eight. All eyes on Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese
- Police searching for Chiefs' Rashee Rice after alleged hit-and-run accident, per report
- A White House order claims to end 'censorship.' What does that mean?
- Gambler hits three jackpots in three hours at Caesars Palace
Ranking
- Global Warming Set the Stage for Los Angeles Fires
- Dozens arrested after protest blocks Philadelphia interstate, police say
- Shoplifter chased by police on horses in New Mexico, video shows
- Missing 4-year-old's body found, mother Janet Garcia arrested in connection to his murder
- Jamie Foxx gets stitches after a glass is thrown at him during dinner in Beverly Hills
- I'm a trans man. We don't have a secret agenda – we're just asking you to let us live.
- Kraft Heinz Faces Shareholder Vote On Its ‘Deceptive’ Recycling Labels
- WWE Star Gabbi Tuft Lost All Will to Live—But Coming Out as Transgender Changed Everything
Recommendation
The FTC says 'gamified' online job scams by WhatsApp and text on the rise. What to know.
First they tried protests of anti-gay bills. Then students put on a play at Louisiana’s Capitol
LSU's X-factors vs. Iowa in women's Elite Eight: Rebounding, keeping Reese on the floor
Sawfish in Florida are 'spinning, whirling' before they die. Researchers look for answers.
Bodycam footage shows high
Robert De Niro, Snoop Dogg and Austin Butler Unite at Dinner Party and Talk Numbers
Solar eclipse glasses are needed for safety, but they sure are confusing. What to know.
Leah Remini earns college degree at age 53: It's never too late to continue your education