Bill fails to control weapons at schools

’96 Tenn. law goes unaltered

NASHVILLE — When Tennessee lawmakers passed a guns-in-parking-lots bill Thursday, they refused to address an existing, littleknown state law allowing a “nonstudent adult” to have a firearm in a car on the property of a public or private school or college — regardless of school policy — if the gun isn’t handled.

That provision, added in 1996 as an exemption to Tennessee laws that generally prohibit weapons on all school property, surfaced weeks ago as the state legislature prepared to debate this year’s gun bills. It immediately raised the concerns of public and private education officials who hoped lawmakers

would repeal or alter the 17-year-old law.

But Republican leaders rejected attempts by Democrats to alter the school provision via amendments to the guns-in parking-lots bill now awaiting likely approval by Gov. Bill Haslam. That measure, Senate Bill 142, allows people with handgun-carry permits to keep guns in their locked cars on most parking lots in Tennessee — including at most workplaces, schools and campuses — against the owner’s objections without facing criminal charges. Although employers may still fire or sanction employees who violate company policies prohibiting guns on the property.

In both the House and Senate, Democrats proposed amendments to ban guns from all public and private K-12 schools, colleges, universities, daycare centers and other educational institutions. “We know school safety is of utmost concern to us. These are common-sense exemptions to this parking lot policy,” Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, DRipley, said in Thursday’s House debate.

But in moving to table Fitzhugh’s amendment, Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R- Chattanooga, alluded to the existing law and educators’ concerns about it. “We already have some laws on the books having to do with educational institutions and the right to carry in your car there and certainly it’s something we need to look at — but not here on the House floor.”

The 1996 statute, approved when Democrats controlled the Tennessee legislature, was adopted two years before lawmakers shifted the issuance of gun-carry permits from the 95 county sheriffs to the state Department of Safety, with training requirements and background checks.

It was apparently enacted to allow people who carry guns in their cars to drive onto school property to drop off or pick up their children, or make deliveries, without facing criminal charges.

State Atty. Gen. Robert Cooper affirmed SB 142 does not “repeal or impact” the existing statute, in an advisory opinion requested by Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor John Morgan.

Educators say when SB 142 becomes law, it will work in tandem with the 1996 statute to make guns even more legal on school campuses than in compa- ny parking lots.

Morgan said Friday that the issue “continues to be a matter of concern.”

“Assuming the governor allows the bill to become law, the result will be that state law will afford more protection to workers in the company parking lot than it does to students on elementary and high schools grounds or on college campuses,” Morgan said.

Private institutions are also pushing for action but don’t expect it this year.

“We’re concerned about the current statute that somewhat recently became known, where nonstudent adults can have weapons in their vehicle, the vehicle does not have to be secured, and the weapons do not have to be secured or out of sight,” said Dr. Claude Pressnell, president of the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association. “So if this bill passes through in its current form, the parking lot at The Commercial Appeal will be safer than our campuses because at least there ( businesses), they are restricted to valid handgun-carry permit folks and the weapon has to be out of sight and in a secure place — whereas on Rhodes’ campus that doesn’t have to be the case for a nonstudent adult.”