A few short weeks before a shooter entered a Nashville elementary school and opened fire, I covered a march to the state capitol where activists were demanding gun control measures.
I heard a refrain that has become familiar in the time I’ve been covering guns — it’s usually something along the lines of: “Are we waiting for a tragedy to reform firearm laws?”
I remembered those words on March 27, 2023, when tragedy came. Three school children and three school employees were killed at the Covenant School. The children were all age 9: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The adults were Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61.
And while the shooting was over in minutes, its impact defined 2023 in Tennessee.
A majority of people in the state — regardless of their political party — rallied around gun reform. Even the state’s Republican governor proposed a law to disarm dangerous people. Despite the public outcry, no meaningful gun reform was accomplished at the state capitol.
Here are just a few of the stories WPLN reported on guns this year:
How Tennessee became one of the most gun-friendly states before the Covenant School shooting
An intruder, armed with two automatic-style weapons and a handgun, entered a Nashville school and killed six people. The three guns — along with four others hidden at home — were obtained legally, despite concerns over the perpetrator’s mental health at the time.
Before the shooting, gun control advocates had spent years trying to get Tennessee lawmakers to tighten gun laws in hopes of preventing something like this from happening here.
Instead, Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature and governor’s office have made the state a more gun-friendly place — courting gun manufacturers to move here and making it easier for more people to get guns.
The above timeline shows the ways that Tennessee has set out to become one of the most gun-friendly states in the nation over the last decade.
After Covenant, Lee calls for expanding a gun dispossession system already failing domestic violence victims
In a surprising move, Gov. Bill Lee proposed a law to separate dangerous people from guns this year.
Past mass shootings had not moved the needle. But Covenant felt different. The violence struck close to home for Lee — it happened at a private Christian school, and claimed the life of a close family friend of the governor as well as three 9-year-old children.
Right away, there were signs the governor’s idea could struggle to win backers in the Republican supermajority. And the approach the governor landed on would have ultimately expanded a gun dispossession system in Tennessee that has a track record of allowing guns to slip through the cracks with deadly consequences.
How Tennessee’s justice system allows dangerous people to keep guns — with deadly outcomes
William DeShazer for ProPublica Kimberly Jones-Mbuyi, left, and KiAndrea Jones, Michaela Carter’s mother and sister, hold a photograph of Carter at their home in the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee.
While the Covenant School shooting shook the state in 2023, a quieter epidemic of gun violence has been claiming the lives of Tennesseans for years. Our state is one of the most dangerous for women — it consistently ranks in the top 10 states in the rate of women killed by men. The majority of those homicides are committed with a gun.
Tennessee has decent laws on the books for domestic violence victims to get protection from abusers. But when it comes to actually separating dangerous people from guns, the state falls short.
WPLN and ProPublica are exploring the faults in Tennessee’s gun dispossession system through an investigative partnership this year. So far, we’ve found that of 75 people killed in domestic violence shootings in Nashville since 2007, at least 29 victims — nearly 40% — were shot by people who were legally barred from having a gun.
In 2024, we’re expanding that reporting to the rest of the state. You can help by submitting a tip or comment in the form at the bottom of this link.
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