Letter to House Civil Justice Committee

[Worriedman]

Sent this as I am hearing the Sheriff's Assc. and TBI will be joining DOS in opposing HB 1005 over the inclusion of long guns...:

Representative  *********

The attached chart and graphic are instructive with respect to the situation Nationwide with respect to long gun carry recognized as a right instead of being treated as a crime.

I have maintained for decades when speaking to the General Assembly, that sans individual Tennesseans bearing their personal firearms (in case of confrontation as is stated as a right in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen) there would be no Republic. 

In 1780 John Sevier, William Campbell, and Isaac Shelby led the Overmountain Men (Early Tennessee Volunteers) at Kings Mountain to kill “Bulldog” Patrick Ferguson and stifle the southern push by Lord Cornwallis to break the will and back of the Revolution.  “Light Horse” Harry Lee called them, “A race of hardy men who were familiar with the use of the horse and the rifle, stout, active, patient under privation, and brave.”  The leaders spoke this to the assembled farmers and tradesmen just prior to the battle “Don’t wait for the word of command. Let each one of you be your own officer and do the very best you can.”  General George Washington exhorted his own men by saying “The crude, spirited, hardy determined volunteers who crossed the mountains served as proof of the spirit and resources of the country.”  Just the “Average People” as Colonel Perry described us in his testimony in the House Civil Justice subcommittee, were the type of people who signed their very lives on the ‘For” line of that check, written as one willing to lay down their lives for their friends and Liberty.

Moving forward to 1814 and the call for volunteers to go with Colonel Jackson to Alabama to fight the ”Red Sticks” Creeks at Horseshoe Bend.  Once again into the breech strode private Tennessee citizens, with their private rifles, to stand against crime and tyranny, not soldiers, but rather the “Average People” once again pitting themselves against an attempt to wrest freedom and liberty from the people.  Without waiting for government to rescue them they took initiative with the tools best suited to the task at hand, which by the way, were guaranteed them in the recently ratified Bill of Rights. At that time their right to keep and bear arms had not been fully infringed (that would come later in 1821 by action of the Tennessee General Assembly).  Coffee, Carroll, Houston, and Crockett all present defeated the Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and went from there to the field of Chalmette and destroyed the British at the Battle of New Orleans, Coffee and Carroll again at the center of danger without regard for personal safety, they led and bled for Liberty!   Major A. Lacarriere Latour, Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana (Philadelphia, 1816), 88; was quoted as saying:

“Their appearance, however, was not very military. In their woolen hunting shirts and coperas dyed pantaloons; with slouched hat or cap made from the skins of raccoons or foxes; with belts of untanned deer-skin and in which were stuck their hunting-knives—but were admirable soldiers, remarkable for endurance and possessing that admirable quality in soldiers, of being able to take care of themselves. At their head rode their gallant leader, a man of noble respect, tall and herculean in appearance, mounted upon a fine Tennessee thoroughbred, was stately and impressive."

General Coffee’s Tennesseans, those modest and simple sons of nature, displayed that firm composure which accompanies and indicates true courage.... Instinctively valiant, disciplined without having passed through the formal training of reviews and garrison maneuvers, they evinced on this memorable night, that enthusiasm, patriotism, and a sense of a just cause, which were of far more avail than scientific tactics. The heroes of Wellington, who boasted of their military tactics and disciplined valor, were often doomed by woful (sic) experience, to appreciate the prowess of those warlike sons of the western country.”  Stanley Clisby Arthur, cited in The Story of the Battle of New Orleans “Over 2,000 British were either dead, wounded, or missing, while the American loss stood at seven killed and six wounded.”  A resounding victory for the ”Average People” and once again proof that Tennesseans with their personal rifles were a mainstay of the protection of the Republic.

I entreat you to consider the text and history of our Great State, that free men with their personal arms are in fact  “the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” (from St. George Tucker in Blackstone’s Commentaries), and to move HB 1005 by Grills/SB 1503 by Stevens as written currently to Public Chapter.

Please keep in mind that any private business can limit what weapons they want to allow in their brick and mortar.  I negotiated with a  large “Quick Stop” chain years ago their signage that permitted ONLY concealed carry, the same could be done with long guns in the Wal Marts your constituents fear seeing them in.  Be cognizant too, that AR 15 pistols are legal at this time under the law you helped pass in 2021, same fire control group, same magazine size, same everything, only very short barreled and no stocks making them easy to hide.  Those are already among us, and you voted for that to be allowed.

With all due respect.

C. Richard Archie

Edited February 26, 2023 by Worriedman