Photo: Tennessee Governor Bill Lee
Photo Credit: Gov. Bill Lee / Facebook
Published May 27, 2021
By Jon Styf [The Center Square contributor] –
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill Wednesday that makes the state a Second Amendment sanctuary.
Senate Bill 1335 prevents any “law, treaty, executive order, rule, or regulation of the United States government” that violates the Tennessee Constitution or the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution from being enforced in the state.
That violation would have to be determined by either the Tennessee or U.S. Supreme Court. The stipulation was added during debate of the bill in the Tennessee House, and the Senate concurred.
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In the initial Senate discussion, much of the debate centered around whether the bill was acting as nullification, meaning it was attempting to overrule federal law.
Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, interpreted the bill that way, calling it “foolishness.” Some on the other side of the debate disagreed, and others, such as Sen. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, said that nullification was “alive and well” and used federal and state marijuana use laws across the country as an example.
Democrats such as Rep. Antonio Parkinson, D-Memphis, were happy to support the bill.
“Contrary to the messaging that’s out there, Democrats are not for taking your guns away from you,” Parkinson said during debate.
Rep. Bo Mitchell, D-Nashville, said during debate that getting a Supreme Court ruling probably would not ever happen quickly. He used a potential presidential executive order on a bump-stock ban as an example.
“It would take three years or more for the Supreme Court ever to rule on that,” Mitchell said. “So people in Tennessee could enforce that and not be subject to the penalties in your bill.”
Rep. Scotty Campbell, R-Mountain City, said he could not comment on that timeline.
“The court has its own timeline on many things,” Campbell said. “I know what I would like to see. It’s probably very different than what you would like to see. I’ll just leave that there.”
4 Responses
Glad to see Tennessee enjoy and exercise the nullification process which Thomas Jefferson supported completely.
Thank you to all those supporting our 2nd Amendment rights and for all those common sense bills. And thank you for so many of this state’s rulings that give us Tennesseans the freedoms our forefathers fought for so many years ago!
God bless each of you, this beautiful state, and it’s precious citizens!
This is pretty worthless. We have to depend on the supreme court to tell us it is unconstitutional? That would make it null and void anyway. Can the TN court act quickly? Can they be trusted?
The Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution which can not be changed by any Government, State or Federal,
Only a Constitutional Amendment by the people, can change the Constitution.