Tennessee’s Republican-led Legislature is meeting in special session this week to consider a package of public safety proposals, including some stemming from a deadly shooting at a Nashville elementary school earlier this year.
Though the session is not expected to result in any new firearms restrictions, it nonetheless highlights the widely divergent response among states to a spate of mass shootings across the U.S.
The proposal that has gotten the most public attention also appears among the least likely to pass. It would allow judges to order the temporary removal of guns from people determined to be a risk of killing themselves or others. The shooter that killed six people, including three students, at The Covenant School in Nashville had been under a doctor’s care for an emotional disorder, police said, but there were no legal steps to prevent the person from buying guns.
Less than a week earlier, fellow Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law making Illinois the eighth state to roll back legal protections for firearms manufacturers and distributors. The new law bans firearms advertising that officials determine produces a public safety threat or appeals to children, militants or others who might later use the weapons illegally.
By contrast, some states have strengthened gun rights. One of the most recent laws got signed just weeks ago by Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, of Alaska. Texas responded to last year’s deadly Uvalde school shooting with new laws this year that require armed security officers at every school and silent panic buttons in every classroom. The state also provided additional funding to improve the physical safety of schools.
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