300winmag

Maybe the governor will make the same change at the capitol building or at least provide secure storage so that guns aren't left in cars.

There are several articles in google that popped up.  It is in the Memphis news also.

It looks like we will now be able to legally carry at the legislative plaza.  You might want to thank your state senators and representatives for this change.

The time spent writing this bill could have been used to write a bill to remove the no gun sign criminal penalty.  That would actually help people more.    Instead this bill doesn't remove the no gun sign crime, adds liability to both private business and government, and already has a fiscal note.  It will probably go nowhere.  But I guess the folks who came up with this bill will get their NRA brownie points to get re elected.

I don't think business lost over people who carry not patronizing a business would make much difference.  Not enough people regularly carry. 

The 30.06 violation was brought down to a C misdemeanor fine from what I understand similar to a speeding ticket.  Not great but better than before.  Texas honestly does not have the best carry laws.

The sign law is garbage and needs to be changed.  It has the potential to be used in a bad way against good people with permits.  I guess the NRA and some of the politicians are more concerned about their "Stand Up to Obama" noise than actually fixing the problems handgun carry permit people face.  It took five years for them to somewhat fix the park carry law.  I guess that is the pace of carry permit reform here.   If you ever did get Constitutional carry here, you will see even more no gun signs than you see now with all the media attention.  What good will constitutional carry do you when every place you go to you risk a weapons charge over a sign?  If you actually carry most of the time, then it will be a huge pain to deal with to be legal.  It already is a pain in downtown Nashville or downtown Memphis.  But I guess if you only carry on Saturday when you go to Wal Mart and McDonald's, then it isn't a big deal.

None of these bills change anything for the average handgun carry permit person as far as reducing restrictions on us that we can get arrested/cited over, such as the no gun sign law.   All the college and school carry bills apply to such narrow circumstances that not many people with permits will benefit from it, if any.  What K-12 school is going to come out with a policy knowingly letting their employees carry?  How many college employees will carry?  Why not just a clean bill giving an exception for all people with handgun carry permits like other states do?   The school and the sign penalty problems could be fixed with a couple cleanly worded bills, but instead time is wasted on bills that will not help the problem.  I guess someone will get their NRA pat on the back during the election year because they looked like they did something when in fact did nothing.   

That's right.  The no gun sign law is something that can potentially cause problems.  What good is Constitutional carry when you can't legally carry anywhere because of all the no gun signs that are put up because of the media scare over it?  I saw it happen in Mississippi when open carry was basically legalized.  If you didn't have an enhanced license you were out of luck at a lot of properties.  Bad thing is here, we don't have any enhanced license so you would be illegally carrying.   It's easy for people to say "Well just don't go there", but when a good chunk of the downtown area of a major city has no gun signs on both the private and public property, it becomes quite a hassle to try to be legal when you are running back and forth to your car to leave your gun.  Sometimes you can't avoid going to say a local government building or a hospital.  It's not like people can take their big stand and boycott those type of places.   Constitutional carry will get nowhere in this legislature.  The people that put the bill out there will get their pat on the back by the NRA and we'll have another year of nothing of substance that actually passes.

The arguments against college carry do not add up.  It is legal in probably half the states to carry on college property with a license.  In fact, with an enhanced license, you can carry on K-12 and college property in Mississippi.  The requirements to get the enhanced license in Mississippi are the same as we go through in Tennessee.   We need to urge our legislators to amend or add a bill in the legislature that has a chance of passing to fix this problem.

Is there any move in Tennessee towards allowing coyote hunters to hunt at night?  A lot of states let folks spotlight coyotes at night.

As long as you conceal, you should not have any problems in those locations because you are legal.  Worst case if your handgun becomes visible, someone asks you to leave.   There is a Democrat sponsored bill in the House and Senate that would restrict carry at places that charge admission.  I doubt it would go anywhere because of it being a Democratic sponsored bill, but we should keep an eye on it.   From what I'm seeing, there really aren't any bills that help with reducing restrictions for handgun carry permits.  Most of the bills are a lot of political noise that won't help permits and honestly won't get floor votes.

Just don't carry in the bar area of a restaurant.  There is no penalty for carrying in a location with 'no guns' signs, but you can be asked to leave if people find out you are carrying.  Since you have to conceal, then that shouldn't be a problem.  You can have a handgun in your glovebox without a license.

The no gun sign fix would be the best thing and we could carry in a lot more places legally.  Maybe we can get that put in one of the bills sitting in the legislature.  There shouldn't be any kind of money impact to the state, so it should not be stalled in finance committee like the constitutional carry bills.

We had a five year gap from the time of the first park carry bill that opened up a few parks to legal carry to last year's park bill that opened up all parks.  So I guess we can count on any decent bill taking five years to improving a small bit on our carry permit restrictions?  Maybe in ten years folks can carry on college property with a permit and in twenty maybe the no gun sign fines will be canned?   A lot of the bills introduced have no chance of even being voted on the floor and are nothing more than bills that give the sponsors a pat on the back from the NRA.  You have some that are political noise, like the bill to drop VA as a state TN recognizes.  Then you have a couple that are good in theory, such as the college teacher and school carry bills, but are so restrictive that the average handgun carry permit person still risks a felony charge for carrying on school property.

I am curious if the reduced fee bills and the constitutional carry bills will get stuck in finance committee.  There's really not much else out there besides bills that make a bunch of noise that will never get voted on.  In fact a couple of bills would make TN not recognize some out of state licenses.

I'm not too impressed with the pro gun bills that I see in the legislature as far as bills that reduce restrictions on handgun carry permits.   Hopefully some of the bills that have been filed can be amended to cut carry restrictions.

Unless it just hasn't popped up, there is no bill that deletes/modifies the 'no gun' sign law and no bill that gives a general exemption to carry on K-12 or college property.  The proposed school and college carry bills are so restrictive that no one will be able to carry on school property.  The no gun liability law will go no where because of the insurance issues VS just deleting the 'no gun' sign statute.

There are a couple of interesting bills   HB1644  is a private K-12 and private college carry bill for people authorized by the school only. HB1751  is a public and private K-12 carry bill for people authorized by the school only. HB 1736 is a college and university carry bill for full time employees only. HB 2033 liability for properties that prohibit handgun carry.

That bill unfortunately will not make it past committee for a floor vote.  Better to spend effort on something that can be voted on the floor and actually help people with handgun carry permits.   I agree with Constitutional carry, but it honestly has no chance of actually being voted on with the folks we have now in the legislature.  You only have so much time and political capital during the legislative session.  Why not use that time and political capital to improve things for people with permits instead of proposing bills that have zero chance of being voted on?

I'd rather see bills reducing the restrictions on people with handgun carry permits.  In an ideal world, we could all open carry a gun anywhere we wanted to.  The legislature likes the permit system because of the revenue, whether we like it or not.  We should then work with that permit system to cut the restrictions on it.

Thursday is the filing deadline for bills.  If you want to see a bill that has a chance of passing (getting through finance committee) you might want to contact your representative/senator.  I don't think Constitutional carry will get anywhere because of the loss of money to the state with people not buying permits.    If you want to see an exemption for people with permits on school property or get rid of the 'no guns' signs law, then now would be the time to get that in.  There should be no excuse a school exemption or no gun sign bill would get tied up in finance committee.

The difference would be you can't get hit with a weapons charge in Georgia when the police come to a place with a 'no guns' sign.  You would just get hit with trespassing if the police come and you do not leave when asked to leave.  In TN, you could get hit with both a weapons charge for the sign and trespass for failure to leave.

How would anyone know you are armed if you have it covered up with your coat?  I'd carry and not tell anyone.  There is no law keeping you from carrying, unless you are on school property.

The state wouldn't be forcing private businesses to recognize right to carry by modifying or deleting the 'no gun' sign statute.  If you go into Georgia (well most states honestly), no gun signs do not have any sort of weapons charge issues.  A business owner can still make you leave the property if they discover your weapon, including terminating employees who carry against company policy.  The issue is though a civil issue between the employee or customer and the property owner.  The police do not get involved in that sort of issue unless the gun carrier does not leave when asked.    A property owner in TN could do the same thing and honestly can right now even without a 'no guns' sign.  I just want to see the criminal weapons penalty removed, not force property owners to have to allow guns.  There is a big difference between the two.  That is why I think this state senator's bill is a bad bill because it does not balance property rights with gun carrier's rights.   Think about it this way.  Let's say I don't like alcohol and do not want alcohol on my property.  It is not against the law for you to be carrying a six pack of beer on my property, but I can still ask you to remove the beer or leave if I don't like you bringing beer.  It would be silly if there was a 'no beer' sign law and someone could get arrested over carrying beer when all I have to do is ask the person to leave if I see the beer.  That is the way it should be as far as gun carry.