GUN LEGISLATION:

Defers 3 other measures involving firearms

State Senate committee OKs one bill, defers three.

NASHVILLE — A state Senate committee Tuesday recommended approval of a bill that would prohibit state colleges a nd universities from ta king disciplinary action against an employee or student with a hand gun-carry permit for transporting or storing a gun in their vehicle on the institution’s campus.

Sen . Bria n Kelsey, R- Germantown, sponsor of the bill that won the Senate Judiciary Committee’s approval, said his bill is intended to enforce provisions of the guns-in-parking-lots law approved two yea rs ago

That law allows handguncarry permit holders to keep their guns in their locked vehicles on their public and private employers’ parking lots, even if it is against the employers’ policies, but did not explicitly cite public college a nd university campuses.

Kelsey ’s Sen ate Bi l l 19 91 adds a new provision to state law governing public colleges and universities declaring that: “No public postsecondary institution shall take any adverse or disciplinary action against an employee or student of the postsecondary institution for such person’ s transportation and storage of a firearm or firearm ammunition in compliance with (the guns-in-parking-lots act) while on or using a parking a rea located on property owned, used, or operated by the postsecondary institution.”

The committee deferred action on three other gun bills, at their sponsors’ requests, that also were scheduled for review Tuesday.

Those bills would have allowed permit holders togo armed on college campuses, required private K-1 2 schools and colleges to implement gun policies either allowing or banning guns on their campuses, and made individuals and entities that ban guns from their property liable for harm suffered by permit-holders on their property.