Reports of Doomed Gun Control Efforts Raises Questions

Tennessee isn’t likely to pass gun control this year. They didn’t during a special session called explicitly to pass gun control in the wake of a shooting at a Nashville private school, so it’s unlikely they’re going to do anything here and now.

But that doesn’t mean gun control groups aren’t going to push for it anyway. They kind of have to. If they just sit there and shrug, their money dries up and no organization can have that.

So, they engage in their quixotic efforts to keep the money rolling in.

What’s funny is how the media covers it, such as this report from Tennessee.

Attention on the Tennessee General Assembly erupted like a fire hydrant in spring 2023. The Capitol grounds became a bustling forum where grief and protest collided in the days and weeks following the Covenant School shooting, which left three children and three adults — as well as the shooter — dead. National media joined local journalists in filing daily reports.

It was the rare political moment when elected officials — in this case a Republican supermajority capping a decade’s worth of expansive and permissive gun laws — appeared legitimately sympathetic to opposing points of view, in this case students, parents and citizens concerned about more school massacres and preventable shooting deaths in general. The broader parental coalition active in post-Covenant gun reform advocacy included actual parents of children who had survived the Covenant School shooting, offering crucial tragic and strategic moral high ground.

But the legislative changes that many showed up for, including red-flag laws and universal background checks, did not happen, either during the 2023 legislative session, during the August 2023 special session on public safety convened by Gov. Bill Lee, or during the 2024 legislative session. Certain gun-related bills made it through in 2024, including Jillian’s Law — legislation that facilitates firearm dispossession for individuals deemed mentally incompetent by a court — which was named after a Belmont student who was shot and killed in 2023. The chambers also passed bills loosening gun regulation.

“How did we come from a tragedy like Covenant to this point?” asked Claire Jones, a nurse and gun reform advocate who watched from the gallery as lawmakers passed a bill permitting teachers to carry firearms in school, as reported by Chalkbeat. 

Here’s the thing that gets me in all of this.

This particular report focuses a lot on how there is all this anti-gun effort in the wake of the shooting at the Covenant School in 2023, but they seemingly understand that. They acknowledge that despite that, lawmakers passed a bill on the opposite end of the spectrum.

The truth is that while there’s a lot of money flying into these groups in Tennessee, they’re not going to make any headway.

My big question is, what groups are trying to make headway in the state with similar odds of success but who aren’t getting any media attention? When I was a newspaper publisher, I routinely got press releases from an organization trying to reimplement Prohibition–and that lost their minds when anyone asked to be removed from their mailing list. I’m sure there’s someone like that in Tennessee, and they’re being ignored while they have about as much chance of success as gun control groups have.

So why cover this?

The answer is sympathy. I didn’t run those pressers for the prohibition group because I thought they were bonkers. These reporters actually agree with what these groups are trying to do, which is why they’re getting covered.

This isn’t about the seriousness of the issue but about the desire to see these groups achieve something. These stories get covered because the reporters often figure that the people need to be aware, with some idea that if they know what’s up, they’ll somehow change everything and suddenly decide their rights didn’t matter.