GOP leaders frown on guns in statehouse
Will try to defeat amendment to parks bill
NASHVILLE — House Republican leaders said Thursday they will try to defeat a Senate amendment next week that would allow handgun-carry permit holders to go armed on the grounds of the State Capitol complex.
The Senate voted 28-0 Wednesday to add that amendment to the controversial “guns-in-parks” bill that repeals the authority of city and county governments to ban permit-holders from carrying guns into their local parks.
House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, also acknowledged Thursday that the guns-in-parks bill included an effective date of April 6, 2015, because its Republican sponsor, Rep. Mike Harrison of Rogersville, “wanted to have a date in which this could be acknowledged at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting here in Nashville.”
The NRA expects several thousand members to attend its annual meeting in Nashville April 10-12. The April 6 date has since been removed from the bill by an amendment.
Senate Democrats said Thursday they proposed the Capitol grounds amendment to expose what they called the “hypocrisy” of Republicans on the issue: allowing permit holders to go armed in parks across Tennessee but not on the grounds and inside the buildings where lawmakers work.
In a news conference of House GOP leaders Thursday, Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada of Franklin said that his members support “the idea” of allowing permit holders to go armed in the Capitol, “but the mood is not to support” the amendment because it could kill the underlying guns-in-parks bill. He acknowledged that despite support for the idea, Republicans have not allowed guns in the statehouse after six years as the House majority.
“This will come up, I guess, some day soon. It just hasn’t been a top priority for us. At least I speak for leadership,” Casada said.
Harwell said she will ask House members to reject the Senate amendment because “it was poorly drafted and it jeopardizes the entire bill.”
The amendment says that a handgun-carry permit holder “shall not be prohibited” from carrying “on the grounds of the state Capitol or the surrounding Capitol complex.” During the Senate debate Wednesday, members of both parties said that means inside the Capitol, the Legislative Plaza and the War Memorial Building, where legislative offices and hearing rooms are located.
The underlying guns-inparks bill won approval in both the House and Senate this week but returns to the House next week for action on the Senate amendment. If the House rejects the amendment as GOP leaders hope, the bill goes back to the Senate, whose members will have to decide whether to strip off their guns-on-Capitolgrounds amendment or stand by it and send it back to the House again.
If the two chambers don’t reach an agreement, the overall bill would die for the year.
BILL ADDRESSES TERMINALLY ILL
The House approved a bill Thursday designed to allow terminally ill patients to try drugs and medical devices that have passed the first stage of federal Food and Drug Administration approval but not the agency’s final approval for general use.
The “Right to Try Act,” which now goes to the Senate, doesn’t mandate that drug and device manufacturers participate, nor that insurance companies cover the costs. “It is a final step for someone terminally ill,” said its sponsor, Rep. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol. “Our survival instinct is the most core instinct we have.”