Anti-gun city councilors in Memphis, Tennessee, just won’t let up in their continuing quest to squelch local citizens’ right to bear arms.
Back in July, the city council made an end-run around Tennessee’s firearms preemption law by trying to put a three-part gun control question on the November ballot. Despite the secretary of state’s warning that the questions violated state law, a judge ruled in September that the questions could appear on the ballot.
On Election Day, Memphis voters approved the ballot measure, which prohibits carrying a handgun without a permit, bans so-called “assault weapons” and institutes a city “red-flag” law. However, since the ordinance can’t take effect until the state’s preemption law is changed, city councilors are now pushing the state legislature to help them put their schemes into effect.
According to a story at localmemphis.com, city councilors, who see themselves as taking the lead in gun control matters in the state, plan to “press” lawmakers to change gun laws so they can pursue their restrictions.
“As council people we see it, we hear it all the time from police officers, from community members, gun violence is overtaking our city, and we’ve got to do something about it,” Councilor Jerri Green told the website. “Our city is bleeding out, and we’re asking for emergency help from the state.”
In fact, Green and others want a “retreat” with state lawmakers, who are majority pro-gun, to try to convince them that they need to change their ways—and their laws.
“We’re asking for very simple things like background checks, no permitless carry, we want people not to have weapons of war near our children at schools,” Green said. “These are really basic common-sense things.”
Of course, anyone buying a gun from a licensed dealer in Memphis or anywhere else already has to undergo a background check before making the purchase. What Green is talking about is so-called “universal” background checks—a law law-abiding people would follow but criminals would flaunt.
The state passed a “permitless” carry law back in 2022, and there’s little chance that lawmakers would reverse course and ditch that law. And they shouldn’t, as half of the states in the nation have passed laws deregulating the carry of firearms by lawful citizens.
As for “weapons of war” near schools, machine guns are already tightly restricted under the Gun Control Act. If she’s referring to semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, then she’s seeking to ban so-called “assault weapons,” which are legally owned and lawfully owned by some 20 million Americans.
State Sen. Brent Taylor is having nothing to do with the Memphis City Council’s schemes, according to a letter he sent to ABC24 about the council “pressing” the legislature on gun legislation.
“Clearly, those referenda are as useful as a nutritional chart on a bag of ice since they violate state law and are unenforceable,” Taylor wrote in the letter. “You don’t have to be Einstein’s cousin to know state law supersedes local ordinance.”
Taylor also said he had no interest in having a retreat with the city councilors so they could give him their point of view.
“Should the city host a ‘retreat,’ I will not attend because there is nothing to discuss,” he said. “There is no way in hell I’m going to participate in a discussion to disarm law-abiding citizens in America’s most dangerous city when no one locally is holding criminals accountable. My colleagues and I are more interested in working with serious people to Make Memphis Matter by holding criminals accountable and increasing economic opportunities. This ‘retreat’ does neither.”
