Gov. Bill Lee has declared that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to efforts to reduce crime in Tennessee. “Everything is a possibility.” So, what the heck, why not pull out the big gun, so to speak: martial law, which is military rule over civilian population with the suspension of normal civilian laws.
Not everywhere, of course. Just where it’s needed. And we all know where that is, right? Wink, wink.
“Blue cities like Memphis need all the help they can get to combat violent crime,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn says, “and I’m grateful for President Trump’s tremendous work to hold leftist officials accountable for putting their own citizens at risk by pushing soft-on-crime agendas.”
Ain’t it curious how amenable Republican politicians can be to government intrusion into everyday life when the people being intruded upon tend not to vote Republican?
And then Rep. Andy Ogles one-upped Blackburn by suggesting that the capital city be added to the list needing military oversight, just as the president has claimed the nation’s capital as his personal jurisdiction and installed patrols there.
“We don’t just need the National Guard in Memphis, send them to Nashville,” Ogles posted on X. He also saw Blackburn’s “leftist” description and raised the ante by suggesting that Nashville’s mayor Freddie O’Connell is a full-fledged Commie and gang-sympathizer.
“Comrade O’Connell is using the city as an outpost for international gangs to set up shop in our neighborhoods,” he posted. “Punish criminals and the Mayors who work for them.”
In the Ogles universe, “Comrade O’Connell” counts as clever wordplay.
And I’m not just inventing this martial law possibility. State law gives the governor the authority to declare it “if in the governor’s judgment the maintenance of law and order will thereby be promoted.”
Isn’t that exactly what proponents of sending in the troops claim would be accomplished, the sacred Republican mantra of law and order? Martial law is just more of the same. Kicking it up a notch, as the chef Emeril Lagasse likes to say. Bam!
The powers are not unlimited, as the statute spells out. “Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize a declaration of martial law, in the sense of the unrestricted power of military officers, or others, to dispose of the persons, liberties or property of the citizen,” it reads.
I stand ready for anyone to explain to me what that last part means. Dispose of the persons? Sounds ominous.
Whatever it means, the measures that are allowed are pretty extensive. They include setting and enforcing curfews; prohibiting and controlling pedestrian and vehicular traffic and the presence of people on public streets; regulating and closing places of amusement and assembly; prohibiting the sale and distribution of alcohol; and regulating and controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of firearms.
That last one comes with an additional limit: “nothing in this subdivision … shall be construed as authorizing confiscation of lawfully possessed firearms and ammunition.”
Of course they won’t take away guns. Which leaves me wondering what might happen should a still-armed, don’t-tread-on-me, creator-empowered patriot take exception to a Guard member’s standing between him and his nightly six-pack of PBR. Tall boys.
Isn’t that their whole Second Amendment argument, that plentiful guns are necessary in case citizens need to protect themselves against an overreaching government?
Things could get real ugly real quick. But hey, the loss of liberty is the price of freedom, right? Or something like that.
A FOOTNOTE: Lest I leave you thinking that “Comrade O’Connell” took Ogles’s comments sitting down, you should know the mayor had this to say:
“This is a congressman who is himself under investigation, who seems to be showing off for the president so he can get a pardon. This is somebody who’s involved in a political race of his own but seems more invested in a city he neither has an office or lives in.”
In a battle of wits, it’s advantage, Freddie. Ogles is unarmed.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at jrogink@gmail.com