Tennessee Lawmakers Say Danger Of Terrorism Underestimated

State lawmakers scrutinized a plan to let members of the Tennessee National Guard carry their own guns and shared their own fears about terrorism in the second day of hearings on last month’s shooting in Chattanooga.

Maj. Gen. Max Haston, the commander of the Tennessee Guard, defended a decision to let soldiers and airmen with state handgun permits carry their own weapons while on duty in state armories and other Guard facilities. And Haston told a panel made up of primarily state senators that there will be limits on what they can carry.

“We have got some specific guidance that we’re going to tell our folks that they can do. I don’t want people walking around in our armories with, you know, 16-inch barrels hanging off their hip.”

Haston
says the possibility of a terrorist attack on a Tennessee Guard facility has to be weighed against the everyday risk that someone’s weapon will go off accidentally. 
That’s why he wants Guardsmen to carry their personal handguns, which they’d be most familiar with.

Lawmakers generally support arming Guardsmen, but state Sen. Mark Green (R-Clarksville) says Haston’s logic seems backwards. The Army veteran argues that if the goal is avoiding accidents, Guardsmen should carry their 
military rifles.

“I, having gone through basic training with long guns — These soldiers are taught to respect a weapon. They’re constantly drilled about accidental discharges.”

Other parts of the safety plan drew fewer questions. Haston has called for 
erecting collision-proof fences around Tennessee Guard facilities and adding a bullet-resistant coating to the windows of storefront recruiting offices. Those improvements will cost about $18 million.

Lawmakers Say Danger Underestimated

Later, legislators aired some of their fears about terrorism, generally. In particular, they wanted to know if state officials are regularly informed about 
students who overstay their visas and about intelligence chatter.

State Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Mt.
Juliet)
said after
meeting in private recently with an outside security group
, the Tennessee Task Force on National and
Homeland
Security, she’s
convinced Tennesseans
are in more danger than they think.

“And the public needs to know. So if they want to carry. So if they want to defend themselves. Our military needs to know. So what are we doing to educate the public on these things?”

David Purkey
, an assistant commissioner with the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, responded that, so far this year, his office had sent out 50 warnings to military, law enforcement and other agencies based on threat assessments.

It wasn’t clear how many of those had turned out to be legitimate threats. Purkey
also didn’t say what groups were thought to be behind them.

But Purkey
said a message his office sent out in March warned of the possibility of a recruiting office shooting.