Three years ago as the Tennessee General Assembly convened, Democratic Sen. Sara Kyle of Memphis introduced a red flag law that would permit a state court to temporarily remove firearms from someone considered a danger to themselves or others. It was defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A day after thousands of Nashville students marched on the state Capitol demanding action after a shooter killed six people, including three children, at a small private Christian school in Nashville, the same committee voted April 5 to defer action on any gun-related legislation until next year. Why? No rational reason was given by the Republican majority, which in another bill proposes that 18-year-olds be able to walk down a public street carrying a rifle.

The shooter in the March 27 attack, identified as Audrey Hale, had legally purchased seven firearms recently including three used in the shooting, despite that Hale was being treated for an emotional disorder.

The shooter’s parents believed that their child “should not own weapons.”

Hale is precisely the person that a red flag law would target. Had Tennessee put such a law in place as was attempted in 2020, perhaps this latest school shooting could have been avoided. Perhaps six victims would be alive today.

On April 11, after one of his wife’s closest friends was killed in the Nashville school shooting and after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also lost one of his best friends when a gunman killed five people at a bank in Louisville, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order strengthening background checks for gun purchases and also called for Tennessee lawmakers to pass a red flag law.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro had planned to introduce it. But it won’t be this year. Lee’s call for a law designed to prevent people who may hurt themselves or others from having access to firearms comes as Republicans maintain supermajority control in both the Kentucky and Tennessee statehouses, where GOP lawmakers have long resisted limiting gun access — even, apparently, to persons who are mentally ill.

Kentucky passed a measure earlier this year declaring that state a “Second Amendment Sanctuary,” prohibiting local and state police from enforcing any federal firearm regulation banning guns, ammunition or firearm accessories that took effect after 2021. As with Tennessee, efforts to pass a red flag law in Kentucky have made no headway.

Lawmakers have adjourned for the year, and currently aren’t scheduled to meet until January. It makes no sense to delay action on red flag laws. Experts contend they have undoubtedly saved lives, be it in cases involving planned mass shootings, suicides or potentially deadly domestic violence cases.

Nineteen states now have them. Tennessee should be next.

-Kingsport Times News