Tennessee House Passes Bill Letting Teachers Carry Guns

The bill, HB1202/SB1321, also does not allow parents or other teachers to know precisely who is armed. The bill is heading to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law.

On April 23, Tennessee’s House of Representatives passed a bill allowing trained teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on school campuses. The bill, HB1202/SB1321, also does not allow parents or other teachers to know precisely who is armed. The bill is heading to Gov. Bill Lee’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law.

As The Associated Press reported, the bill passed in Tennessee’s House with a 68-28 vote, largely along party lines. All of Tennessee’s Republican House members, except for four members, voted in favor of the bill, a fact that did not sit well with members of the state’s Democratic Party or the members of the public, who chanted “Blood on your hands” at the Republicans who voted for the bill.

The bill represents a sharp pivot from the response to the shooting at The Covenant School in 2023. Following the incident, Gov. Lee indicated a desire to keep guns away from people who could be a danger to themselves or other people. The state’s Republicans also refused to add a number of Democratic amendments, including parental consent, notification when a teacher is armed, and civil liability for the school district due to injury, damage, or death incurred by staff who carry guns.

Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones told the AP that he believes the state’s Republicans are too beholden to money from gun lobbyists. “My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, hold our state at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry,” Rep. Jones said. “It is morally insane.”

After the vote, the House voted to reprimand Jones for recording on his phone, and as a result, barred him from speaking on the floor through April 24. Notably, the Republican response to the shooting has not been to enact gun control. It has been to fight it, even if a proposal to limit the sale of guns came directly from Gov. Lee himself. Shortly after the shooting, Republicans actually passed a law giving gun manufacturers, dealers, and sellers more protections in addition to allowing Pre-K and kindergarten grade level teachers to have handguns on those campuses.

Parents, meanwhile, have also protested the potential law through a letter that was presented to Rep. Jones by Sarah Shoop Newman, facilitated by his aide. The letter, which had garnered over 5,300 signatures, was concerned that the guns represented a risk to children. “Anyone who hasn’t received extensive training, such as that provided to law enforcement officers, will likely be mentally unprepared to take a life, especially the life of a student assailant.

Such training should include many things such as threat assessment, de-escalation, how to work with students with disabilities, school law, trauma-informed practice, and most importantly – specific armed assailant response. Many of these requirements were specifically voted down in proposed amendments for SB1325 against NASRO and FBI recommendations.”

The letter continued, “We must ensure every student, at every school, has proper security to ensure they are truly safe when their parents drop them off each morning, not improper security measures that could place students and staff at risk for harm. Ultimately, we need preventative measures against gun violence so no other community in our state experiences the tragedy that took place at The Covenant School on March 27th, 2023.”