No more excuses: Why Tennessee must hold its special session on gun safety | Opinion

Re: “Williamson County leaders: Gov. Lee, reconsider special session,” July 29.

Dear elected leaders and community officials,

We call on you to reconsider your stance on the special session of the General Assembly called by Gov Bill Lee.

We feel that the time to discuss legislation to create safer schools and communities is now, because action is long overdue. The time to act was after the Knoxville Universalist Church mass shooting in 2008. Or after the 2015 shootings in Chattanooga. Or after the Burnette Chapel mass shooting in Antioch in 2018. Or after the 2018 mass shooting at the Waffle House in Antioch. Or after the shooting in the Collierville Kroger in 2021. Or after the 2022 mass shooting in Chattanooga.

But due to your inaction in the wake of each of those tragedies, we now have an obligation to act considering the most recent mass shooting in Tennessee at The Covenant School in Nashville in March.

Tennesseans are frustrated with the legislature's passivity towards gun safety after these tragedies. Poll after poll shows the people of Tennessee want common sense gun laws, like the extreme risk protection order proposed by  Gov. Bill Lee. According to a Vanderbilt poll done this spring, 75% of voters in the state support red flag laws. We the people continue to speak up and tell you what we want. When will you start listening to us?

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Excuses to kick the can down the road are unacceptable

Several Williamson County community members vocalized opposition towards holding a special session centered around gun safety, arguing that the investigation into the Covenant shooting is ongoing and that unanswered questions remain.

This is a smoke-and-mirror argument that should not deter legislators from acting. Every shooter has a different motive for their actions. We cannot seriously base legislation off the thoughts of one deeply troubled individual. However, we may learn from past tragedies and implement common-sense gun laws to prevent another from occurring.

Your next concern is the timing of the special session and the potential disruption it may cause kids and university students starting a new school year. This concern ignores the pain and suffering already experienced by parents, teachers, and kids who fear that attending school may cost them their life. It equally ignores the disruption that The Covenant school, and every school in the state, faced on the day of and in the aftermath of the March shooting.

Kids are scared to attend school because of your inaction. Instead of rolling up your sleeves and addressing the issue head-on at the time, you rushed to finish the legislative session without passing a single gun safety bill or even allowing discussion of the many proposed bills addressing gun safety in committees.

If you had fulfilled your responsibilities during the spring, this month would have been a time of celebration for kids, teachers, and university students returning to their campuses, but instead, it has been overshadowed by grief and fear.

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Tennessee can afford to hold this special session

Another deceptive argument you proposed is the issue of funding for the special session. Tennessee sits on a large “rainy day fund” surplus that can be used  to fund this session if necessary. Additionally, the Tennessee National Guard was not needed during the protests at the end of the regular session as there were no incidents of violence and no arrests.

Your last argument is the additional workload that will fall on law enforcement as a result of people traveling for the special session. We would like to remind you that law enforcement has tried to educate you on the dangers of your lax gun laws for years.

They testified against both the permitless carry and “guns in trunks” bills, each of which have made law enforcement's job much harder since their introduction. So please do not talk about extra work for police officers without acknowledging how you’ve made their jobs harder.

We call on you to do the right thing. Parents, students, teachers, and school staff are worried about the coming school year. Help ease our minds. Make it harder for disturbed individuals to terrorize our schools and communities.

Most respectfully,

Katrina Green, MD, FAAEM, emergency physician and gun safety advocate

Rev. Ingrid McIntyre, Glencliff United Methodist Church

Timothy Hughes, 2nd vice-president NAACP Nashville Branch 

MaryJane Brown, MD FAAEM, FACEP, past president of TN Chapter of American Academy of Emergency Medicine 2018-2020

Find a list of 400-plus signatories to this guest opinion column at this link and on Tennessean.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: No more excuses: Tennessee must hold its special session on gun safety