Busy Week For The 2nd Amendment In The Tennessee Legislature
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By John Harris [Tennessee Firearms Association] and The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
There are 9 hearings the week of February 21st that will deal with various Second Amendment-related bills in the House and Senate.
All 9 of the bills are being tracked by The Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA) and they are asking for Second Amendment advocates to call and email the committee members as well as individual House and Senate members with words of support or opposition.
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The bills, along with the contract information of the committee members can be found HERE. Bill Updates HERE.
The TFA asks advocates to prioritize support or opposition for the bills listed below:
SUPPORT:
HB1898 by Grills is set for Tuesday in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee at 9:00am. This bill would convert the existing enhanced and concealed only handgun permits to “firearms” permits. The 2nd Amendment does not limit itself to handguns and no such limitation under existing Tennessee law to handguns only is constitutionally sound under the “shall not be infringed” mandate.
SB2823 by Roberts is set for Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary at 3:00pm. This bill has been named in honor of House member Mike Carter, a retired judge who is now deceased, because Rep. Carter worked diligently to held develop the policy contained in this legislation that those who are forced to use self-defense or other justifiable force should not be upcharged by certain district attorneys or forced to bear the full costs and expenses of a criminal trial when the fact of self-defense is genuinely indisputable.
OPPOSE:
HB2850 by Rep. Kumar is set for Tuesday in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee at 9:00am. This bill seeks to create a “voucher program” so that state taxpayers would incur an estimated cost of approximately $13,500,000 per year on a recurring bases to give “vouchers” so that individuals purchasing handguns can get a coupon that they can redeem for firearms training classes. While TFA supports training, TFA does not support taxing some citizens to provide cost subsidies to others on the issue of firearms training.
HB4777 by Rep. M. White is set for Tuesday in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee at 9:00am. This bill would expand an equal protection problem under current Tennessee law where some citizens, those classified as “off duty” law enforcement officers, have the ability to carry firearms in places and locations not in the course and scope of their on duty functions which places are classified as “gun free zones” for all other citizens. While TFA takes the position that officers who are on duty and in the actual course and scope of their duties should generally not be impeded when it comes to firearms custody, TFA does not believe it to be constitutionally sound that some citizens are granted exceptions or privileges which are denied to other citizens based on an off-duty individual’s on-duty job considerations. Self-defense and personal defense is a fundamental right and all citizens should be treated equally under the law when “off duty” or on “personal time”.
HB1830 by Rep. Lamar is set for Wednesday in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee at 9:00 a.m. This bill seeks to further efforts to pursue a gun control agenda by requiring the department of health to study and report on gun violence as a public health problem. While there is likely a need to have increased data on juvenile violence, violent crime and the socio-economic, social and judicial system, and educational factors influencing violent crime trends in Tennessee, that study is more properly focused on all crime and perhaps reported through the TBI. Any effort to make it a “public health” issue and limited to firearms is spending tax dollars in an effort to support progressive efforts to further gun control.
HB2087 by Rep. White is set for Wednesday in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee at 9:00 a.m. and seeks to make it a criminal offense of someone to store a firearm in a personal vehicle.
About the Author: John Harris is the Executive Director of The Tennessee Firearms Association. You can contact TFA here. You can join TFA here.
I believe the “Bill of Rights” is part of a “Document” that can not be changed or altered except by an Amendment processed detailed in that document.
And that process denies any legislation of Laws or Rules that would change or alter any of the Rights contained in that “Bill of Rights”.
So my question is:
If legislative or Rule making regarding anything in the Constitution is prohibited except by the Amendment process,
“WHY” is the Tennessee Government trying to legislate in an area the “Supreme Law of the Land” places “Off Limits” to both, State and Federal Government????
Run a stop sign, you lose your right to vote,
Speeding, lose your right to a jury trial,
Use your gun in self defense, lose your Second Amendment right.
If they can pass “ONE LAW” to deny any part of the Bill of Rights, (Gun Laws) they can make an end run around the Constitution’s prohibition of legislation for any little “petty reason” they chose and legislate all rights away from all people.
This is the “NEW PRINCIPLES” of how Law should operates they are trying to get people to accept.
Any “Lawyer, Judge, Government Official”, who accepts this new definition of “Law” is not a person you can trust to manage and protect your rights and freedoms.
By itemizing (Enumerating) the areas government was given to govern, Government was
restricted only to those areas “Enumerated”.
This was the argument James Madison made for protecting the Bill of Rights from
Government powers of legislating in the area of the “Bill of Rights”.
In Federalist Paper 84, Hamilton summed up the arguments pretty well.
“His belief that including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution would be dangerous. It
would claim various exceptions to powers that were not delegated and this would provide
a pretext for the Federal Government to claim more than was granted.
For example why should it say the the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no
power is given by which restrictions may be imposed”??
The same restrictions on Government legislating the First Amendment,
press/religion/speech, etc. which is part of the Bill of Rights, also restricts Government
from legislating any other amendments in the Bill of Rights, especially the “Second Amendment”.
Madison even believed that by including a “Bill of Right”, they would be even more secure because no government/Court could deny those rights.
“If they are incorporated into the Constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights”.
James Madison
“When rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or
legislation which would abrogate them. [Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436, 491.]
Supreme Court.
“All authority belongs to the people… In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief with chains of the Constitution”.
T. Jefferson.
Plain and simple, Neither State or Federal Government have any authority to create any law or rules that change or alter anything, not just the Bill of Rights, in the Constitution.