Wonder of wonders, a Republican legislator pre-filed a bill that qualifies as gun control. Or gun safety. Gun good sense, let’s call it.
The bill, sponsored by Adam Lowe, a state senator from Calhoun, would render someone convicted of felony firearm theft permanently ineligible to buy a firearm in Tennessee. The theory, I suppose, is that a bad guy with a gun is ipso facto not a good guy with a gun.
It adds to the list of people already prohibited, which includes “persons who have been convicted of the offense of stalking ... who are addicted to alcohol ... or who have been judicially committed to a mental institution.”
The law already includes a number of exceptions, such as when the conviction is set aside or expunged, or the person is pardoned, or has had his or her civil rights restored.
Still, it’s newsworthy when any Republican does anything to slow the flow of weapons into Tennessee hands.
Another bill, by the Cookeville Republican Rep. Ryan Williams, would bar the purchase or possession of a gun by anyone 18 to 24 if he or she had been adjudged delinquent for certain acts. Both bills stood out for me as faint glimmers of light amid the darkness when I began my annual research into legislative folly.
It’s early yet, so there’s plenty of time for the havoc that no doubt lies ahead. It would be hard for Republicans to duplicate their boneheadedness from last year, which included expelling a couple of young Black Democrats for the grade-school equivalent of speaking out of turn. But I don’t doubt their ability to sink to the occasion.
Meanwhile, I will continue to avoid detailing humdrum legislative pursuits, like anything involving agricultural cooperatives, cosmetology licensing or franchise taxes. Whatever they are.
Instead, I will continue to pay steadfast attention to the efforts to designate official state this, that or the others. Some people – including my wife – consider those measures generally to be a waste of time. I, however, consider anything that distracts legislators from their usual mayhem as a net positive for the public.
Along those lines this session are House bills to make hot slaw the official state food and Cleveland the hot slaw capital, both by Rep. Kevin Raper of – you guessed it – Cleveland.
“Hot slaw is a unique Bradley County, Tennessee tradition,” the Pick Tennessee Products website explains. “A deliciously spicy blend of cabbage, onion and peppers, it was created and made a household word by a local drive-in theater owner in the ’50s and ’60s and is still wildly popular. No self-respecting Bradley Countian would ever think of serving barbeque or hot dogs without it!”
I’d argue that, delicious though it may be, slaw is a side dish, and that an official state food ought to be a main event on the plate. As it is, the closest Tennessee comes to honoring a comestible is the state fruit, tomato, with the state beverage, milk, a potable cousin.
Maybe lawmakers have just been too focused on naming official state songs, of which we have a dozen or so.
And counting. Another House bill would make “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee, the state’s official holiday song. It recently hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, 65 years after its release.
As expected, the usual parade of honors and memorials for notable people living or recently dead has begun again with resolutions by the House and the Senate. The most famous among the potential recipients, as of this writing, is the singer Sheryl Crow, for her induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The most contentious, I suspect, is Channel 5’s pit bull investigative reporter, Phil Williams, recipient of the 2023 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Williams’s recent efforts included putting the spotlight on Franklin’s lunatic Republican mayoral candidate, Gabrielle Hanson. But he’s an equal-opportunity pest to the powerful, as witnessed by his dogging of district attorney Glenn Funk of Nashville over listening devices in Funk’s offices.
Still, I doubt Vegas is giving odds on Williams’s chances for a legislative salute.
As for that gun-control bill at the beginning of this column, I should mention one other thing. Lowe, the sponsor, filed it Nov. 30, and withdrew it five days later. Maybe he wants to fine-tune it somehow. Or maybe he’s decided against trying to swim upstream.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.