NASHVILLE, Tennessee –
Protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” before Tennessee House Republicans Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed firearms on public school grounds, and ban parents and other teachers know who was armed.
The 68-28 vote in favor of the bill sent it to Republican Gov. Bill Lee for consideration. If he signs it into law, it would be the largest expansion of gun access in the state since last year’s deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville.
Members of the public opposed to the bill harangued Republican lawmakers after the vote, prompting House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleaned.
Four House Republicans and all Democrats opposed the bill, which the state Senate previously approved. The measure would prohibit disclosure of which employees carry guns beyond school administrators and police, including parents of students and even other teachers. A principal, a school district and a police agency would have to agree to allow staff to carry guns.
The proposal presents a completely different response to the Covenant School shooting than the one Lee proposed last year. Republican lawmakers quickly dropped their push to keep guns away from people considered a danger to themselves or others.
A veto by Lee seems unlikely, since it would be his first time and lawmakers would only need a simple majority of members of each chamber to override it.
“What we’re doing is creating a deterrent,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said before the vote. “Across our state, we have had challenges related to shootings.”
Republicans rejected a number of Democratic amendments, including parental consent requirements, notification when someone is armed and the school district assuming civil liability for any injuries, harm or death due to staff carrying weapons. Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones attempted to rename the bill to be the “Refusal to Protect Children in Schools Act.”
“My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, holding it at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry,” Jones said. “He is morally insane.”
It’s unclear whether any school districts would take advantage of the law if passed. For example, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, Sean Braisted, said the district believes “it is better and safer for only approved active duty law enforcement to carry weapons on campus.”
About half of U.S. states in some form allow teachers or other employees with concealed carry permits to carry guns on school property, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun control advocacy group. Iowa’s governor signed a bill the Legislature passed last week creating a professional permit for trained school employees to carry a permit into schools that protects them from criminal or civil liability for the use of reasonable force.
In Tennessee, a shooter opened fire indiscriminately in March 2023 at The Covenant School, a Christian school in Nashville, killing three children and three adults before police killed him.
Despite coordinated campaigns after the shooting to persuade the Republican-led Congress to enact meaningful gun control measures, lawmakers have largely refused. They rejected gun control proposals put forth by Democrats and even Lee during regular annual sessions and a special session, even as parents of Covenant students shared accounts of the shooting and its lasting effects.
Under the bill passed Tuesday, a worker who wants to carry a gun would need to have a weapons permit and written authorization from the school principal and local police. They would also need to pass a background check and undergo 40 hours of firearms training. They could not carry weapons at school events in stadiums, gymnasiums or auditoriums.
Tennessee passed a law in 2016 allowing school workers in two rural counties to come armed to campus, but it was not implemented, according to WPLN-FM.
Tennessee Republicans have pushed to relax gun laws over the years, including approving permitless carry of firearms in 2021. Lee backed the change.
The original law allowed residents over the age of 21 to carry firearms in public without a permit. Two years later, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti reached a settlement amid an ongoing lawsuit that then allowed 18- to 20-year-olds to carry guns in public.
Meanwhile, shortly after last year’s shooting, Tennessee Republicans passed a law strengthening protections against lawsuits involving gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers. This year, lawmakers and the governor approved allowing private schools with preschool classes to have guns on campus. Private schools without preschool were already allowed to decide whether to allow people to bring weapons onto their campuses.
They have proposed some very specific weapon limitations. One awaiting the governor’s signature would involuntarily commit certain criminal defendants for hospital treatment and temporarily strip them of their gun rights if they are found incompetent to stand trial due to an intellectual disability or mental illness. Another bill that still needs Senate approval would eliminate the right to bear arms for young people deemed delinquent due to certain crimes, ranging from aggravated assault to threats of mass violence, up to age 25.