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Worriedman

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Everything posted by Worriedman

  1. March 22, 2024 Gun Owners Lobby Date 2024 - Sign up now! In the next paragraph, the underlined "Sign up now" is a button to do just that. Last week when I testified in committees, Mom's Demand Action, Covenant Moms and Safter TN filled the room. if that is all legislators see, that is how they will vote... Tennessee Firearms Association and Gun Owners of America are planning a Gun Owners Lobby Day to be held on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, at the Tennessee Legislature. Sign up now! We must have accurate estimates of attendance by Tuesday, March 26, 2024 to place orders. We are planning to work that day to insist that our Legislators put a constitutional amendment (HJR0038 / SJR 0904) on the ballot in 2026 for gun owners. We will also be working to pass the handful of good 2nd Amendment bills that are pending and to make clear that we expect Legislators that they need to STOP most of the bills that are pending this year that include Red Flag laws, new crimes targeted at owners, new taxes to be imposed on gun owners and just more and more "big state" proposals to burden all citizens. Several of you have already signed up based on the announcement last week in the Legislative Report, and/or the announcements by TFA on Facebook or Twitter. We need an accurate estimate and time is critical! Also, contact your Tennessee State Legislators to demand that they sponsor the proposed Constitutional Amendment to restore your Second Amendment Rights. Some Legislators have proposed and are supporting a Constitutional amendment that would repeal the existing unconstitutional provision and substitute the phrase “That the citizens of this State have a right to keep, bear, and wear arms.” (See Amendment 1 to HJR0038 by Rep. Jay Reedy and SJR0904 by Sen. John Stevens) The amendment would, at the state level, reinforce that state legislators, local governments and others government decision makers are constitutionally prohibited from engaging in any “interest balancing” that the Supreme Court has said the Second Amendment prohibits. TFA has an easy to use email advocacy call to action tool that allows you to email your House and Senate members, the Lt. Governor, the Speaker of the House and Tennessee Governor with your request that they support amending Tennessee's constitution.
  2. Testimony was finally heard in Senate Judiciary this last Wednesday, the 20th of March. It received 7 favorable votes, along party lines of course. Have to get it out of Finance in the House and then to the floor there. Of note, I had three guys go with me for testimony, Moms Demand Action, Covenant Moms and Safer TN had over 60 in the room...
  3. In truth, it was less heinous than I expected. The treatment they gave Matt Shoaf was actually remarkable in my eye. The interview I gave was over an hour and a half, they used less than a minute. I have to give Van props for at least fact checking me on the Bath School Massacre and putting the newspaper page up to verify the truth of what I said. Had I been able to pick a segment they should have aired, it would have been his question about "Safe Storage". His supposition was that if one is getting gas at Sam's, and a criminal opens the vehicle door while you are at the pump and shoots a baby in it's carriage and a cop in the head, shouldn't the gun owner be liable for the crime? My answer was no, as my vehicle is understood by Tennessee statutory law to be my "castle" and an act of breaking and entering said castle to take my property to commit a crime was antithetical to the rule of law, but offered him a similar scenario. Suppose while pumping gas a thief opens the door of your vehicle and snatches a baby out the car seat and runs over to an overpass on I-40 and tosses the baby over the rail and it smashes the windshield of a semi passing underneath, causing an accident that kills numerous people, should the car owner be charged with those deaths? He did not have an answer and that segment of course did not get televised. Can't be afraid to show up though...
  4. Walked into the lions den and did an interview with Van Jones, it will air next Sunday night at 8:00 Central. Jones is a Jackson, TN native and a graduate of UT Martin. An avowed communist, his crowning accomplishment was his tenure as Obama's "Green Jobs Czar", (from which he had to resign) now a commentator on CNN. The interview on my part lasted over an hour and a half, I doubt there will be 5 minutes used in the program if that, but I gave as good as I got. This is the trailer...
  5. The Senate will hear all Firearms related bills in s "special" calendar next Tuesday March 5th. One will expect the Commie Mommies and the Covenant Moms to be out in full force. SHR 0904 and SB 2615 are on notice. I will be in attendance.
  6. All for it. Been working this bill for years, I think we might get it over the hump this time.
  7. Added another 24 cosponsors today, now over 50 in the House, will post all names tomorrow. That assures passage in the House, now need to bolster support in the Senate!
  8. Call to action on HJR 0038! https://tennesseefirearms.com/make-the-tennessee-constitution-second-amendment-compliant/
  9. Current House cosponsors: Todd, Sparks, Doggett, Slater, Barrett, Capley, Moody, Grills, Fritts, Cepicky, Martin B, Russell, Littleton, Moon, McCalmon, Keisling, Lamberth, Bulso, Boyd, Gant, Davis, Bricken, Richey, Darby, Hill, Garrett. Need to get this to 50+ to force Senate to take action, only have three cosponsors there so far, Bailey, Bowling and Hensley. it has been assigned to Senate Judiciary, need Sen. Dawn White, Sen. Kerry Roberts, Sen Paul Rose, Sen. Jon Lundberg and Sen. Brett Taylor. Any of their constituents need to call and email asking for their support.
  10. Senate Joint Resolution 0904 is now running concurrent. Contact your legislators and get them to cosponsor.
  11. This is the only facially valid issue up for consideration this session. It haws to be passed in both the House and Senate this year and then again next year to be on the ballot in 2026, as a Constitutional Amendment. It is placed on Constitutional Amendment calendar in the House finance committee agenda (no date set yet). John Stevens, the agreed upon Senate sponsor was wanting to wait till it was passed fully in the House before "picking it up" to run through the committee system in the Senate which would have resulted in it be dead this year, mandating we wait till 2030 to get it on the ballot. I engaged a number of his constituents and got them to help me convince him that it was necessary to run the resolution concurrent with the House version, it has been interesting. I contacted the Sec. of State and the Clerks of both chambers to validate the Constitutionality of running it at the same time and was afforded the ruling that it was. We will see what happens. Anyone interested in taking back the rights enumerated in our 1796 Declaration of Rights needs to contact their Senators and insist they sign on as cosponsors and push for this resolution to be put on the ballot in '26.
  12. I have been down with total shoulder replacement (reverse method) since last Monday the 22nd. Kicked the opioids Tuesday night so getting my sea legs back under me. Anyone who did not understand this was an attempted hatchet job is not paying attention, but, needing live, grassroots 2nd Amendment advocates involved to counter a seeming tsunami of "organic" support for "common sense" gun laws should be apparent to everyone reading this thread. If we do not show up, they can point to a lack of desire on the great unwashed to engage and they win!
  13. Indeed, "Strongly Disagree" to every one. The tide is building, they are coming for us.
  14. https://tennesseeconservativenews.com/tennessee-gun-reform-group-supported-by-some-republicans-questioned-by-others/?inf_contact_key=f8d6ada04d1b49436e83cd80e712afd4680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1 They are dragging in stars and politicians. If we sit idle, they will get it all... From the article: “It is a public health crisis right now,” Waller told Channel 12 News. “If you remember many decades ago, there were a lot more vehicle deaths. […] That was resolved because people said, you know, we don’t want to take your cars, but we want to show you how to safely drive them and how to be a safe car owner. So, we think the same thing is needed for gun reform.
  15. Most likely this Non-profit is funded by Bill Haslam, sure smells like it.
  16. In every meeting at the legislature there are 100s of Moms Demand Action, and me...the picture added was the hearing on HB1005,themost important bill to come up in years and sponsored the the same legislator, where were the 2nd Amendment supporters for that one?
  17. How about some of the members here show up in committee meetings?
  18. He knows what we think, he carried the Civil Immunity bill, I work with him all the time. He is trying to get metrics to push back against the RINOS that are in charge. He has been shown the data that there are no contrary to the gun grabbers responses, meaning all of Tennessee is in favor of more gun control. If you cannot discern how to answer the questions, (strongly disagree) I guess we are truly doomed. The other side will show all their buds answers and there will be an insignificant amount of push back.
  19. One of the best Reps. asked me to get responses that would at least have some modicum of offset, I try to work with them.
  20. Characteristically, prior to the late 20th Century, state governments denied concealed carry as they were concerned about the criminal element "hiding" firearms for nefarious purposes. Tennessee even had a form of "Constitutional" carry for decades, allowing for the carry of Army or Navy pistols in the hand, openly only. Many states denied concealed carry but allowed open carry up until the early 1900's. Nunn v. State Georgia Supreme Court (1848) which mandated the right to carry arms openly is protected, not to secret them so that the other person or government cannot take heed to the fact: ""Nor is the right involved in this discussion less comprehensive or valuable : “ The right of the people to bear arms shall not he infringed.” The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such, merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree ; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charla l And Lexington, Concord, Camden, River Raisin, Sandusky, and the laurel-crowned field of New Orleans, plead eloquently for this interpretation ! And the acquisition of Texas may be considered the full fruits of this great constitutional right. We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Rut that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly, is in conflict with the Constitution, and void; and that, as the defendant has been indicted and convicted for carrying a pistol, without charging that it was done in a concealed manner, under that portion of the statute which entirely forbids its use, the judgment of the court below must be reversed, and the proceeding quashed"" Funny how things turn about. The People and the government share a "whistle in the graveyard" mentality, that if they can not SEE the firearm it does not exist.
  21. We have run that bill a number of times and will again this year, you are up against the Chamber of Commerce on it. You know, the ones who spend the most money every year buying politicians. They couch their adversarial stance in Private Property rights, but that is a scurrilous argument as the Federal Government says any place that hangs out a sign and invites the public in is a public conveyance. We have two separate TN Supreme Court cases that say off duty police officers are simply citizens, and if they can carry past signs why not enhanced permit holders at least. (that would make the state money). But no, the Chamber and its whores refuse to allow you top protect yourself while making them rich.
  22. A letter I started sending out to legislators today. Since at least June 2022, the United States Supreme Court has mandated that government restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights impose on the government the burden to demonstrate that the restriction mirrors or is consistent with the “national historical tradition” that existed when the 2nd Amendment was adopted in 1791. Accordingly, I have been seeking the historical evidence of analogues from the era of the ratification with respect to long gun carry in Tennessee. I can find no statute in Tennessee that existed prior to 1989 that criminalizes the carry of any long gun. There are various, albeit only a few, statutes that regulated in some fashion civilian possession of handguns, as well as knives, clubs, sling shots and brass knuckles. However, even those statutes appeared to be regulations based on collateral factors such as the individual’s conduct and were not broad bans. Indeed, even as of 1989, citizen possession and carry of certain “military” style handguns was exempted from the statutory regulation. Thus, it is apparent that the General Assembly was precise in its desire to list each of those items and the circumstances attendant to the restrictions but yet no such list included long arms. It is likewise clear that Tennessee’s approach, which has been referenced by the Supreme Court, is not one that was in line with the “national” historical tradition. It is now clear that the General Assembly, or the majority of the members thereof, appear to have an animus against the inalienable and indefeasible right of the citizen to keep, bear and wear arms. Indeed, in 2023, the State’s attorney general entered into a voluntary settlement of a federal lawsuit, a settlement which remains subject to federal court enforcement, whereby the State agreed in writing that state laws which restricted the rights of 18-20 year olds to carry handguns violated the 2nd Amendment, the 14th Amendment and constituted a federal civil rights violation. Yet, despite that federal settlement and consent decree, the General Assembly has repeatedly refused to repeal or amend the statutes in question to eliminate the unconstitutional provisions. Rifles and shotguns are items that are in common use today in the United States. The case Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), proscribed that if there were 200,000 stun guns in the possession of Americans, that this quantity satisfied the rule found by the United States Supreme Court in Miller (1939) and reiterated by it in Heller (2008) that only those weapons that are dangerous AND unusual could be denied the citizen and, more specifically, that firearms that are useful for military purposes and/or that are in common use are protected by the 2nd Amendment. In McDonald (2010), the Supreme Court said it was a conjunctive test, bolstering the previous rulings from the Supreme Court protecting those categories of arms. Today, there are at least 24.4 million AR 15s in the possession of Americans and likely at least 200,000 within a sixty mile radius of Nashville. If 200,000 stun guns was deemed to be a sufficient quantity nationally to achieve constitutional protections as “common use” then certainly 24.4 million is as well. In Tennessee, our Supreme Court stated in Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 179–80 (1871) - “[W]e would hold, that the rifle of all descriptions, the shot gun, the musket, and repeater, are such arms; and that under the Constitution the right to keep such arms, cannot be infringed or forbidden by the Legislature.” It appears that by 1989, the General Assembly elected to ignore the state Supreme Court’s constitutional ruling. The Tennessee Supreme Court holding in Andrews further held: "The right to keep arms, necessarily involves the right to purchase them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use, and to purchase and provide ammunition suitable for such arms, and to keep them in repair. And clearly for this purpose, a man would have the right to carry them to and from his home, and no one could claim that the Legislature had the right to punish him for it, without violating this clause of the Constitution…Bearing arms for the common defense may well be held to be a political right, or for the protection and maintenance of such rights, intended to be guaranteed; but the right to keep them, with all that is implied fairly as an incident to this right, is a private individual right, guaranteed to the citizen, not the soldier." The Tennessee General Assembly and the members thereof have an affirmative duty, pursuant to their respective oaths of office, to follow the constitution and to protect the rights of the citizens, with a priority on those rights which themselves are expressly protected by the Constitution. The United States Supreme Court in New York Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 20-843. (2022) stated “In Heller and McDonald, we held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.” This is the Court’s holding and not merely dicta. It is an affirmative holding that must be recognized as such by those who profess to uphold the Constitutions of the State and Union. We, as Tennesseans, expect the General Assembly to likewise protect and defend clearly established constitutional rights. It, and its members, have failed to do so. I am asking for your written assurances, assurances that we can share with the members of the Tennessee Firearms Association, that the General Assembly will no longer abdicate its constitutional obligations but that it and its members will move forthwith in 2024 to repeal any and all statutes, regulations, ordinances or orders for which there is no existing clear and convincing national historical tradition as a precedent. It would be good ir it came from more than just one person...

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