State Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says the Tennessee Firearms Association’s involvement in GOP primaries may hurt future chances for a compromise on the so-called “guns in parking lots” bill.
The measure to allow gun permit holders to keep firearms in their cars at work, regardless of the workplace’s policies, pitted business lobbyists against gun rights advocates during this year’s legislative session. The state legislature attempted to hammer out a compromise, but ultimately pushed the matter off until next year.
That upset the TFA. The group is actively campaigning against one GOP legislator, Representative Debra Maggart. Along similar lines, the National Rifle Association sent a survey to candidates, trying to pin them down on the issue.
In video from TN Report, Speaker Ramsey, a Republican, says there’s a good chance the compromise bill will be revived, but he says it’s hard to predict how it will be received in light of the divisive campaigning.
“I don’t know what the mood of the general assembly will be when we come back in, whether it will be a mood to pass a bill or a mood that you don’t negotiate with people who threaten you. I don’t know what it will be.”
When asked by a reporter about the idea that gun rights groups are trying to bully Republicans, Ramsey said –quote- “it isn’t just a perception, that’s reality.”
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