Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee attorney John Harris in studio to explain how the Bruen decision applies to the state of Tennessee’s gun laws.
Leahy: We welcome back to our microphones in studio our very good friend John Harris. John is a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School. And also you have your own practice. But in addition to that, you have been for what, 30 years?
Harris: 28 years now.
Leahy: 28 years. I’m off by two. For 28 years you’ve been the founder and CEO of the Tennessee Firearms Association, protecting the Second Amendment rights of Tennesseeans. We were talking about this decision called Bruen. A recent Supreme Court decision. Lay out the facts of that case and what the Supreme Court ruled, who the plaintiffs and who the defendants were, and then let’s talk about its applicability here in Tennessee.
Harris: The US. Supreme Court in the last 14 years has been on a Second Amendment kind of theme with a couple of cases, three in particular. In 2008, they started with the Heller decision, which held that it’s an individual right to own firearms.
Leahy: And the Heller decision was a guy by the last name of Heller.
Harris: Dick Heller.
Leahy: Who lived in Washington, D.C. of all places. And the city basically said you can’t own a firearm.
Harris: Correct.
Leahy: And he said, oh, yes, I can.
Harris: And the Supreme Court agreed with him. It was a great opinion by Scalia. And then, two years later, in a case called McDonald versus the City of Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the question of does the Second Amendment apply to the states, which was clear from the way it was written and from then basically 200 years of case law that it did not. But what the Supreme Court did in McDonald was they took the 14th amendment. And if you recall, I wrote the chapter on that in the constitution book.
Leahy: Indeed you did. You wrote a couple of chapters for us in the Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students, which is the basis of our National Constitution Bee, where we give out scholarships to kids, and $10,000 to the winner.
We’ve had some great winners. You wrote two chapters in that book and the one on the Second Amendment. This is the briefest, most precise amendment in the entire Constitution.
It was adopted on December 15, 1791, I think, when the Bill of Rights was adopted. It says simply, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Pretty simple.
Harris: Pretty straightforward. It’s been misconstrued a lot by progressives and even what some might refer to as RINOS in the last couple of decades. (Chuckles)
Leahy: And it’s interesting if you look at the language, the clause at the beginning of it, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the state of a free security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
If you just look at that from a logical perspective, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, in part because of a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. That’s one way you could interpret it. Let’s talk about the Bruen decision. Who are the plaintiffs?
Harris: Bruen, following off of the McDonald decision, was a case that came to the Supreme Court in 2021 and was decided in June of 2022.
Leahy: Less than a year ago.
Harris: Less than a year ago. Written by Justice Thomas in the majority opinion.
Leahy: And by the way, I love it when I hear written by Justice Thomas in the majority opinion or written by Justice Scalia. You know it’s going to be a good decision.
Harris: It’s a great decision. The named lead plaintiffs were the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association. And Bruen is a public official. It’s just a proper defendant in this kind of case. And Bruen is essentially the state of New York.
And so the issue was that in New York they had what’s called a may issue permitting system, which left the burden on the individual to demonstrate good cause, substantial need, unique need, in order to justify being issued a permit to carry a handgun. And all of the discretion on whether or not that need had been met was vested in a local government official with really no criteria as to what the standard was.
Leahy: Let’s remember, the Second Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Harris: And New York doesn’t get it. Most states don’t get it. Tennessee doesn’t get it. So the issue was this permitting system that New York was using was constitutional. And in the Bruen decision, the main thing the court really did, and this is a little bit in the weeds, is the Court rejected the last 14 years’ worth of intermediate appellate court decisions which had adopted this two-pronged balancing test that said, yeah, the Second Amendment is there.
But if the state can give us a good reason why they need to regulate permits or where you can carry gun-free zones, then we’re going to allow the regulation, based on the reasonable need of the government to police powers. And the court said, no, that doesn’t apply anymore in Bruen. That’s the big change in Bruen.
Bruen says the Second Amendment is an absolute right. It’s a pre-existing right. It doesn’t derive itself from the Constitution. And in order to interpret a constitutionally protected right, this applies to the First and the Second Amendments.
The courts shall look at what the law was in 1791 when it was adopted. And if the regulation existed then, then that regulation or an analog or something similar to it could exist now.
And if it didn’t, then it’s unconstitutional. And so the Supreme Court struck down the New York licensing scheme at that time. And then, based on Bruen, there have been almost 400 cases since last June decided by lower courts based on the Bruen decision already.
Leahy: Now, let’s get to Tennessee. How does Bruen apply to Tennessee?
Harris: Some people think because Bruen is a federal decision that it really doesn’t apply in Tennessee. It has no relevance to, for example, Tennessee statutes or regulations or even the decision of Bill Lee to post the Capitol as a gun-free zone. And that’s just completely short-sighted, if not misleading, for that assertion to be made because McDonald 2010 said the Second Amendment regulates the states fully under the 14th Amendment. Bruen says the same thing.
And then we’ve got a Tennessee appellate court decision coming out of Maury County, where the court applied Bruen and struck down a local government housing regulation on public housing that said tenants can’t possess firearms. And then more recently, in January of 2023, the attorney general for the state of Tennessee submitted an agreed order in a federal case over in east Tennessee called Beeler, where the attorney general, in a disagreed order, agreed that Bruen applies to Tennessee.
And that the regular violation by the state of Tennessee that restricts 18 to 20-year-olds from getting permits, violates the Second Amendment, violates the 14th amendment, and constitutes a federal civil rights violation.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the founder and president of the Tennessee Firearms Association, John Harris in studio to discuss what first prompted his interest in the Second Amendment.
Leahy: Right now we are delighted to welcome to our microphones here in studio our very good friend the first advertiser on The Tennessee Star more than six years ago, the founder and president of the Tennessee firearms association, Mr. John Harris. Good morning John!
Harris: Good morning. Thank you.
Leahy: It’s always fun to have you here. What time do you usually get up?
Harris: Normally somewhere between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m.
Leahy: So this is not really extra heavy lifting for you to come in at this time.
Harris: Particularly during hunting season.
Leahy: During hunting season?
Harris: In hunting season it’s 3 a.m.
Leahy: You a big hunter?
Harris: I’m a big hunter. But I love wild game, and the only way to get it is to get up and go do it.
Leahy: When is the last time you went hunting?
Harris: First of January.
Leahy: What did you get?
Harris: Went deer hunting this year. Mainly deer hunting.
Leahy: You talk about hunting because you know I do a lot of history reading, and pretty much if you read about English history from the time of Alfred the Great 860 AD until 1700, the nobility of England all they did was hunt and fight in wars. And hunting was practiced for wars.
Harris: A lot of it yes.
Leahy: They were just crazy about hunting and didn’t do much of anything else. (Chuckles) But they hunted and went to war. Was it your hunting experience as a child that got you interested in the Second Amendment?
Harris: Not really because growing up in Nashville there wasn’t a lot of hunting that went on as a child. (Laughter) That came on much later as I started dating a girl that grew up in western Kentucky.
Leahy: Ah ha! Tell us about your interest in the Second Amendment. You went to Vanderbilt Law School. Did you have an interest in the Second Amendment before law school?
Harris: Yes, I would say so because by then I picked up shooting as a hobby. And so that was there. And it was amazing even back then that there were so many restrictions on what you could do. There was no way a civilian for a practical purpose could even carry back then.
At that time, the law in Tennessee was you could carry a military-style handgun openly in your hand, and you didn’t have to have a permit for that. But you couldn’t holster it or conceal it. Like 1911, and it had to be literally carried in your hand.
Leahy: That pesky Second Amendment, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Shall not be infringed. It doesn’t say, might now be infringed. (Chuckles) Will be infringed unless these circumstances are met.
Harris: Right.
Leahy:Shall not be infringed. That seems pretty definitive to me.
Harris: It is absolutely. The Second Amendment hasn’t changed since the 1700s. But there has been a great deal of debate over what it means. And frankly, the courts pretty well understood it all the way through the 1800s. It was the early 1900s when they started getting it wrong. And that came on with the prohibition era.
Leahy: Back to the prohibition era. 1919, that period of time, the progressive era when the federal government began to think you know, we are going to tell citizens what they can and cannot do. We’ve been in that era, for now, a century.
Harris: Yes.
Leahy: It has started to become worrisome. Wouldn’t you say?
Harris: Oh yes. We can’t have real toilets anymore because of the federal government.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed John Harris, founder of the Tennessee Firearms Association, in-studio to weigh in on the Supreme Court’s decision to throw out a century-old law that would restrict gun ownership and require special licensing.
Leahy: We are joined in-studio by the original star panelist, Crom Carmichael, and by our good friend, co-author of the Guide to the Constitution Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students, along with me. You and I and Claudia Henneberry wrote that.
Harris: Several of us.
Leahy: And by the way, it is the textbook used in the National Constitution Bee. We’re going to have another National Constitution Bee in October in Brentwood.
This will be our 6th annual. And we’ve got some kids that have won those Constitution Bees that have done great things. One of them, Cooper Moran, actually writes for The Tennessee Star now, and is about to become a first-year law student at the University of Alabama.
Harris: Congratulations.
Leahy: On a full ride. How about that?
Harris: That’s something.
Leahy: Another one, our very first winner of the national Constitution Bee, Noah Farley, our very first winner, is about to enroll as a first-year law student at Columbia Law School. How about that?
Harris: Excellent.
Leahy: And we have another, Jackson Carter, who is a student at the University of Alabama running for the school board in Maury County, and I think he’s unopposed.
And then Braden Farley who won this past year got a scholarship, a full ride to Grove City College. So we’ve helped a lot of kids.
And the winner gets a $10,000 educational scholarship on that. And thanks so much for writing on the Second Amendment. You wrote a couple of chapters.
Harris: Second amendment and the 14th.
Leahy: Now let’s go back to New York State. I don’t know, I say New York State was a wonderful place to grow up, and it’s a wonderful place to get out of. Upstate New York, beautiful in the summer, cold in the winter, very nice people.
But back in the ’70s, it sort of got overtaken by the unions, and got overtaken by left-wing ideology and left-wing politicians, and the huge influence of the state government to kind of put regulations on everybody.
So the Supreme Court basically threw out this almost century-old law that would restrict who could get a gun, you had to get a special license. What was the term you used, to show good cause?
Harris: It will show good cause. It was a compelling need beyond just I want one.
Leahy: So the Supreme Court makes this decision, then they pass another law. Then the left-wing governor, who, if you can believe this, Kathy Hochul, she’s worse than Andrew Cuomo. (Harris chuckles)
Carmichael: Hard to believe.
Leahy: Hard to believe Crom, that somebody could be worse than Andrew Cuomo. She’s worse. And so they passed this law now that if you want to get a gun in New York, you got to give them all your social media passwords.
Harris: Oh, they’ve gone nuts.
Leahy: That’s nuts!
Harris: If a lower court doesn’t read that brewing decision and strike that down immediately, they didn’t read very well, what [Justice] Thomas said.
Leahy: What’s going to happen on that?
Harris: There’ll be an injunction go down almost immediately, I think, to prohibit them from enforcing that.
Leahy: But that’s the attitude, isn’t it, among the authoritarian left? Is that what we have right now?
Harris: Well, to some extent, the authoritarian middle, across the nation. One thing that came up, the TFA filed an amicus brief.
Leahy: Tennessee Firearms Association. By the way, you founded that group when?
Harris: In 1995. So I’ve been doing this 28 years.
Leahy: 1995. Wow.
Harris: It’s a part-time volunteer gig that I support through my law office.
Leahy: Basically, it’s John Harris funding the defense of the Second Amendment. A lot of friends help out.
Leahy: We do very well.
Harris: Our PAC is up to about $130,000. For a grassroots PAC, that’s pretty strong. And we’ve got some really strong financial supporters that stand up.
Leahy: Oh, good. So it’s just not you paying for everything.
Harris: Oh, no, I mean, I’ll give you an example. Lee Beaman has been a cornerstone for us when we’ve needed to work the political realm.
Leahy: Let me just stop for a moment. We all know Lee. What a great guy.
Harris: No doubt.
Leahy: He’s very successful in business and has been such a great, stalwart conservative and supporter of conservative causes in the state of Tennessee, Crom for what, 40 years?
Carmichael: At least.
Leahy: At least. And steadfast. If you’re a conservative and even if you come under fire, Lee Beaman is there to back you.
Harris: And across the spectrum. It’s not just one issue.
Leahy: And just a great person. In fact, just will say that he was the, well, back to the launch of The Tennessee Star. There were two people that stepped up and wrote checks for the first quarter of advertising when we launched The Tennessee Starin February of 2017. One of them sitting right across the table from me right now, John Harris.
Harris: In my conference room.
Leahy: In your conference room. You wrote the first check and then one hour later, Lee Beaman wrote us a check for Beaman Automotive, and at the time they owned it. That’s how we got started. Crom.
Carmichael: Well, I didn’t know that.
Harris: Kickstarting in those days.
Leahy: It’s kickstarting, and you could do it back then. And interestingly enough, we talked about The Tennessee Star, and I think for five and a half years, I think it’s very clear that The Tennessee Star’snew site combined with the radio program here we do.
And now our new video newscast, our evening news update video, that we are the only conservative news outlet in the state. And I would say that probably most members of the Tennessee General Assembly read The Tennessee Star every day and listen to The Tennessee Star Report.
And we’ve been able to succeed because a couple of conservatives in the state, Lee Beaman and John Harris gave us our start. So thank you for that, John.
Harris: I’m glad to do it then and glad to come on and support still.
Leahy: Let’s talk a little bit more about the Supreme Court, and some of these other decisions that went on.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to TheTennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed John Harris, founder of the Tennessee Firearms Association, in-studio to comment on the possibility of a violation of the national constitutional principles of separation of powers in regards to the selection of Tennessee’s state attorneys general.
Leahy: In-studio, the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael and our good friend who heads the Tennessee Firearms Association. An attorney, Vanderbilt Law School graduate John Harris.
Gentlemen, I think we have a constitutional flaw in the state constitution of Tennessee because it’s a violation of the national constitutional principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. What do I mean by that?
The process by which we select the attorney general here in the state. According to the constitution, we’re the only state that does this. The members of the judiciary, the five Supreme Court justices pick the attorney general.
The Tennessee General Assembly, which plays a vital role in everything that’s being done by the attorney general, has no say in that matter according to the constitution.
Yet, by practice, the governor’s pick – and remember, the governor appoints the Supreme Court justices – has been rubber-stamped with very little questioning about the judicial, the legislative, and the prosecutorial philosophy of the attorney general.
I think that’s a fatal flaw in our constitution. I think there is a possibility of fixing it. But John Harris, I want to talk to you a little bit about this.
The attorney general, in my view, should aggressively defend the Tenth Amendment rights of the state of Tennessee against usurpations of the federal government and the rights of individual citizens. Do you agree with that assessment of what the attorney general should do?
Harris: Oh, absolutely. That’s what you see other states do on a regular basis.
Leahy: The other states are out there. But our current attorney general, Herb Slatery, has been very weak, I think, in defending the Tenth Amendment rights of the State of Tennessee. It’s a long list.
I don’t want to go through all of them now, but it’s a very long list. I would say he’s weak. He said that he’s not going to go for another eight-year term.
The constitution says it’s an eight-year term. All the buzz is that Governor Lee wants to have the Supreme Court rubber stamp. And I use that term advisedly because that’s what they did last time when they picked Slatery.
They rubber-stamped this kind of left-wing former Judge Brandon Gibson who is now the chief operating officer of the state. But everybody says if you look at her opinions as an appellate judge, would you categorize her as left-wing?
Harris: I think I would. Left-leaning moderate at best, yeah.
Leahy: And she’s not going to be somebody who would aggressively defend the Tenth Amendment rights of the state of Tennessee or resist the usurpations of the federal government. I think we’re on a glide path right now.
I think that the Supreme Court has done a very good job in a lot of its recent decisions. My view on that. Justice Bivins is up for retention. An election on August 4th.
I know Justice Bivins and I have personally said here that I intend to vote “yes” to retain him because I think his judicial record is very strong. However, and James Madison would absolutely agree with me on this, the institution should be constrained.
The Supreme Court should not be able to pick the attorney general without the Tennessee General Assembly having a say in that. That’s my view. Your thoughts, John?
Harris: Well, if you look at the state constitution, the role of the attorney general, and the reason the court appoints it, that seat, that position, is because they are constitutionally, essentially the court’s clerk. Their job is to be the official reporter.
Leahy: In the constitution, it says, the Supreme Court shall appoint the attorney general and reporter.
Harris: And reporter.
Leahy: I think it’s the only state in the union where it’s “the attorney general and reporter.”
Harris: That’s correct. And our problem in Tennessee is our legislature, the policymakers have not really understood the constitutional role of the attorney general.
And so by statute, for two centuries now, they’ve been vesting the attorney general’s position with additional statutory authority.
Leahy: Let me just stop here for a moment. This is very interesting, because the selection of the attorney general and reporter, according to the Tennessee Constitution, is the one that we are currently bound by since 1870, but it was around since 1835 in the second constitution as well, the selection of that attorney general reporter is solely the responsibility of the Supreme Court.
Harris: Absolutely. Thank you.
Leahy: And it’s an eight-year term. However, the duties and responsibilities are not in the constitution. They’re determined by statute by the Tennessee General Assembly.
Harris: That’s correct.
Leahy: Wow. So tell us, what does that suggest to us?
Harris: There’s been talk, particularly in the conservative right, of having an elected attorney general like other states do. And if we went that route, then we would have to amend the state constitution.
Leahy: And there have been some ideas, tries. I don’t think that such an amendment to the constitution would pass, just because the process is so long, and right now it wouldn’t affect anything for the next eight years.
Right now, we have a Supreme Court that has not given us the process by which they’re going to select the next attorney general. That’s an error, I think, on their part.
They should make it transparent, and robust, and these candidates should be subjected to very lengthy hearings about their philosophy.
Harris: They should. And that could happen as early as January or February of 2023. And the reason is that because these are statutorily assigned duties, issuing attorney general’s opinions, defending the state and Tenth Amendment matters, handling the criminal appeals, all of that statutorily delegated by the General Assembly to the attorney general, they could easily create another position, call it what you want, maybe solicitor general, and they could define how that position is filled.
It could be through advice and consent. It could be through a popular election. But they could do it within a year. It could be law by next spring, and then they could simply transfer some or all of the duties.
Leahy: And the personnel that are currently in the attorney general’s office …
Harris: They could be transferred.
Leahy: The criticism of Attorney General Slatery and his predecessors is weak in defense of the Tenth Amendment rights of the state of Tennessee. And the people of Tennessee, going to see very weak.
Harris: No public accountability.
Leahy: And no public accountability.
Harris: And all of that could be easily fixed by a General Assembly that was paying attention.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed John Harris of the Tennessee Firearms Association to the newsmakers line to weigh in on the new gun control executive action by Joe Biden and speculates whether or no the Tennessee General Assembly will take action.
Leahy: Yesterday, President Biden made a couple of announcements. Here’s a story at The Tennessee Star. Biden announces executive actions on gun control, says changes won’t impact the Second Amendment. Really? On the newsmaker line right now is Tennessee Firearms Association President John Harris. Good morning, John.
Harris: Good morning.
Leahy: Well, President Biden on Thursday announced executive orders he’s signed on gun control, including ones to address the issue of homemade untraceable firearms known as ghost guns and strengthen so-called red flag laws that allow police or family members to ask a court to order the temporary removal of guns from a person they say, presents a danger to themselves and others. Biden says this won’t impact American rights to own guns under the Second Amendment. What say you John Harris of the Tennessee Firearms Association?
Harris: Well, Joe Biden’s got a long-standing history of deception and lying, and this is just more of it.
Leahy: When I read the Second Amendment, it says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
Harris: Correct. It is abundantly clear there are no qualifiers on that prohibition and yet government officials, certainly at the federal level, and sadly, at the state level and commonly at the local government levels completely ignore that. They want to put a provision at the tail end of it that says, unless we find it to be politically expedient or what we define as reasonable.
Leahy: So these red flag laws that allow police or family members to ask a court to order the temporary removal of guns from a person they claim as a danger to themselves or others, I can see that being easily abused. What do you think?
Harris: It will be. That kind of law exists in some states right now. It doesn’t exist in Tennessee, although a Senate Republican in Tennessee last year tried to push it forward, and this year there are other bills like that pending. I think they’re all filed by Democrats this year. And the sad part is those bills are clearly gun control measures and get guns off the street measures.
Tennessee and other states generally have existing statutes that have been on the books for a long time that allows someone that has a mental health issue that poses a risk of injury to themselves or others, it’s called an emergency committal in Tennessee, to be judicially evaluated by doctors for purposes of seeing if there is an immediate need to get this person some diagnosis and treatment. And they can lock them up for up to two weeks in a mental health facility for diagnostic and determinations.
What these red flag laws do, however, is under the guise of safety they allow anybody without a medical opinion or diagnosis to go to a judge or magistrate to get an order not to get the person off the street and not to get the person evaluated and not to get the person some help, but to just have the police go in and seize their guns and take those items out of the house, disarming the individual and other household members.
Leahy: What is the probability that that such a red flag law would be used against lawful gun owners?
Harris: It has been. And there is a clear history based on congressional Senate testimony of numerous examples where that has been used against lawful gun owners. It’s been weaponized in domestic matters. It’s been used in petty disputes, and it happens all too frequently that many of those, in fact, because they’re done Ex parte, which means you don’t have a chance to challenge it on the front end, is often reversed by a court when they actually have a contested, evidentiary hearing.
Leahy: Now, where does this go forward? I saw that the attorney general of West Virginia, Patrick Morrisey, says, if you do this, I’m going to file a lawsuit against you. Do you suggest that our attorney general in Tennessee, Herb Slatery, that he follow the lead of Morrissey and file lawsuits against these of what I think are unconstitutional executive orders on gun control?
Harris: Absolutely. What I would actually suggest is that Tennessee get an attorney general that leads on issues like this instead of letting other attorney generals in other states be the leader. And then our guy having to be speculated about as to whether or not he would follow suit and join as opposed to lead the battle.
Leahy: Well, that’s a tall order to get a new attorney general. It is a long process to go through that. But do you see Attorney General Slatery filing the lawsuit or not?
Harris: Right now, I see, potentially because of prior experiences with him that he might join in someone else’s lawsuit. I don’t see him filing it on his own or leading with Tennessee as having the best or the strongest arguments. I see him piling as a me-too kind of participant.
Leahy: How does he go about making those decisions and what influence do the average people and state legislators have on him?
Harris: They have a lot of ability and capacity to put public pressure on him. But the state AG, operating as an attorney, exercises generally independent discretion on whether to pursue a particular lawsuit or not. And so although the General Assembly and the public can demand it, they can pass legislation enabling it.
The decision as to whether or not to weigh in and actually do it is the AG. And in fact, there have been instances in the past where the General Assembly specifically wanted the AG to weigh in on issues such as this. The AG failed to do it, and the General Assembly went out particularly, I think when Mark Green was still in the General Assembly and hired a private law firm, the Thomas Moore Center, to represent the state of Tennessee when its own AG wouldn’t.
Leahy: Do you see something like that being a possibility now or needed now on the gun control issues?
Harris: I do think on gun control issues you may see that as an alternative because we have not seen since Slatery has been in office that he’s been particularly supportive or defensive of Second Amendment rights in Tennessee.
Leahy: The Tennessee General Assembly is only going to be in session for another three weeks. Is there a time for such action to be taken?
Harris: They could pass a resolution very quickly to urge that action be taken. But frankly, they’ve known it’s been coming since last fall when the Biden-Harris administration became the president-elect, so to speak. And yet they’ve done nothing during this legislative session of any significance to prepare for the inevitable. So they don’t get a pass on this as if it suddenly struck them out of the blue.
Leahy: Do you plan on contacting members of the Tennessee General Assembly to pass such a resolution?
Harris: We actually wrote legislation and submitted it to a number of legislators back as early as December on this issue to improve Tennessee’s laws and to put a provision in Tennessee law that would have required the Attorney General to go forward with protected Tennessee rights. And the legislators that we submitted it to didn’t even file it as a bill.
Leahy: Why is that?
Harris: Not sure. I don’t know if they were getting pressured down by the leadership. If they were getting opposition from the governor. I know there are two bills pending now, and we’ve offered that legislation as amendments on those bills. And those two bill sponsors have indicated that they’re not even planning to put the amendment on the bill.
Leahy: Do you think any current members of the Tennessee General Assembly would be open to the idea of a resolution requesting that the Attorney General file suit against President Biden’s executive orders?
Harris: Oh, absolutely. I think there are legislators like Bruce Griffey that you mentioned a little bit ago that have the spine that would stand up and demand that we at least do resolutions and proclamations and other types of encouragement for that action. I think also, as Speaker Sexton has said, there’s a whole lot of Republicans in that General Assembly that don’t have the willingness to defend our Second Amendment rights and that’s why we took a partial step on the governor’s bill rather than a full step towards constitutional.
Leahy: Last question. Will you be presenting a draft resolution for, I don’t know, Representative Griffey or others to consider introducing in the next couple of weeks?
Harris: We may do that but we have not drafted one at this point.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
