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.”
Isn’t a ‘retreat’ somewhere mental patients go?
It’s something cowards do when they capitulate to evil or brave and competent soldiers do when their leaders have undercut and failed them.
also common church group parlance.
It’s when you go for seconds of dessert.
“Memphis City Leaders Won’t Blame The Usual Suspects, the Actual Perpetrators of Violence in Their City.”
Fixed It For You.
The usual suspect’s bigoted rhetoric should have “fixed it” by now…johnnyboy you and your ilk are to the Second Amendment what drunk farting gasbags are to fine dining.
So how is he wrong?
void…If your head did not reside in your history illiterate behind you wouldn’t have to ask.
OMG, Debbie – find something new to continually harp on. Yep, everyone gets your year’s-long screed, but even manure eventually dries and disappears.
billions of flies can’t be wrong.
only the hyper deluded would interpret usual suspects as raysis. all local popo maintain and are aware of who should be off the streets, they know the bad guys of all hues.
I concur with Unicorn Whisperer.
So he isn’t and you are just mouthing off like usual?
DEMOGRAPHICS !
Evidently, the Memphis council doesn’t realize they have a criminal problem and not a gun problem.
Time to start putting up “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters with decent bounties. Turn the bounty hunters loose.
I wonder if they think TdA thugs( or the home grown hoodrats) will obey any such restrictions?
Organized crime loves gun control. Guns in the hands of citizens make it hard for enforcers, burglars, car thieves and debt collectors to do business. I promise you they know exactly what they are doing.
It seems the Memphis city council has not gotten the memo: the simple solution to crime is to replace the population with foreign nationals who have entered the country illegally. Fund those illegals through money collected from citizens. Then, replace citizen jobs with low-paying illegally-staffed jobs. Allow foreign gangs to take over property management. That will reduce rents because the gangs have lower overhead. Example: they do not buy office supplies. Lastly, forbid the police from enforcing the law. Do all of this, and watch the crime rate plummet.
They said it would make us rich. All cities should be fighting to get as many illegals as possible. Or maybe they were lying to us.
Move to Tennessee they said! LOL😀
It’s easy to stay away from the Democrat s_hole known as Memphis. It’s like Chicago except they don’t control the rest of the state.
Watching dumbfuk Gun talking blowbags keeping the bigotry inherent with the democRat Party alive is watching the 2A circle the drain.
giggling waterhead…Before you go pointing a finger at TN don’t you think you may need some new knee pads for IL?
Be quiet you mumbling dribbling lunatic.
Are you broken again?
I invision deb as a cow sized gal(guy?) who hates all white men🙄. Vile and disgusting.
Memfrica. That explains it all.
As I have said before. The black elected leadership of Memphis is acting just like the white libertarians liberals and leftists. All of them don’t believe in holding black criminals accountable.
And that is why they complain about to many black criminals being locked up.
All of them don’t believe in liberty. Because they don’t believe in holding criminals, especially black criminals accountable.
It has never been about the gun.
If TN state preemption laws are so strong, why isn’t the state stepping in to stop Memphis from mocking them? Where is the TN Attorney General?
The law’s inability to be enacted with preemption active? They are making angry commie noises but do not seem to actually be doing anything yet but I could be reading it wrong NY preparing for a Trump admin with a measurable percentage of our workforce out for therapy has me a bit burned out.
just carry already. If you have to defend yourself you can.
another option, let your family pick out your casket .
Right straight out of the Progressive Left Handbook – Chapter 1, Section A :
“To the Vanquished go The Spoils.”
“…to disarm law-abiding citizens in America’s most dangerous city when no one locally is holding criminals accountable.”
paraphrase this.
“Our city is bleeding out…”, so we’re pushing for that effective dark-ages practice of “blood-letting”. Hmmm: we keep sawing off the board, and it’s STILL too short!
Arm the POPULACE and the CRIMINALS will be “bleeding out” . . . Soft on crime won’t pay anymore – too risky and DANGEROUS for the THUGS.
Memphis: one more place to consider avoiding with my tourist dollars.
That’s pretty much our thinking, too.
It’s been a while since I sang blues in Memphis, but here are some blues lyrics for Memphis city leaders to sing:
“I’m easy on the bad guys, hard on the good guys with guns.
Yeah, I’m easy on the bad guys, hard on the good guys with guns.
But one day it’ll come back,
And bite me on the buns!”
Memphis.
Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks.
Do I smell home cooking?
It’s only the river, only the river.