If the Speakers want it, they get it in Tennessee.
When then Governor Ned Ray McWherter wanted to rewrite the entire Tennessee criminal code in 1989, which changed the ability of non-criminals to carry rifles and shotguns from a right to a crime in one fell swoop, he did so with the assistance of Speaker Jimmy Naifeh who was his power broker.
Speaker Naifeh wielded that office to control committees and got exactly what he wanted, every time. His bidding or loose your chairmanship or seat on the committees (as a legislator if you can’t pass or throttle things in committee, you have no power to sell your influence for campaign donations). Challenge the Speaker, you wind up with your office in a janitor’s closet in the parking garage. (See Rick Womick, 2014).
The simple fact is this, it was lawful in Tennessee from 1796 until 1989 to carry long guns for all lawful purposes, under our constitution. Proof of that, every high school boy, until that time could keep his rifle or shotgun in the back glass of their pickup on school parking lots. (Its OK, you can admit it is the truth, we all know it to be so!)Scalia referenced the Andrews v. State case from 1871, recognizing that century of the right enjoyed when he quoted:
“In Andrews v. State, the Tennessee Supreme Court likewise held that a statute that forbade openly carrying a pistol “publicly or privately, without regard to time or place, or circumstances,” 50 Tenn., at 187 (1871), violated the state constitutional provision (which the court equated with the Second Amendment). That was so even though the statute did not restrict the carrying of long guns.”
District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 629 (2008)
So, the SCOTUS recognized that the ability to exercise that natural right existed from first rattle out of the box at our Founding until a power hungry administration of Democrats, (Governor, Speaker of the House and Speaker of the Senate) using their People purchased brown shirts and guns took that right away. Of note, the Supreme Court of Tennessee recognized the theft of the right to arms ushered in by the change of wording by a Democrat controlled power structure in 1870 violated the right of the People to bear arms for noncriminal activities:
We may say, that the clause of the Constitution authorizing the Legislature to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime, could scarcely be construed to authorize the Legislature to prohibit such wearing, where it was clearly shown they were worn bona fide to ward off or meet imminent and threatened danger to life or limb, or great bodily harm, circumstances essential to make out a case of self-defense. It might well be maintained they were not worn under such circumstances in order to crime, or that such purpose existed, or that the wearing under the circumstances indicated, of a weapon that might lawfully be kept, had any direct tendency to produce crime. On the contrary, the purpose would be to prevent the commission of crime on the part of another.
Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. (3 Heisk.) 165, (1871).
But that is just the highest court of the state, who has to pay any attention to it? I mean if you are willing to deny instructions from SCOTUS, it is not a big jump to ignore your own Supreme Court, after all, they do not make law, the legislatures of both the state and federal Congress do.
If Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Governor Randy McNally wanted to return Tennessee to a constitutional right, and take us out of only 7 states that make it a crime to carry long guns for all lawful purposes, they can, they absolutely have the power.
