New Bill Would Allow Some Tennessee Gun Owners to Carry Anywhere Cops Can

A recently proposed bill in Tennessee would allow anyone with an enhanced handgun license to carry their weapon anywhere cops can. 

During a time when vigilante justice has come under fire—and has sometimes turned deadly—critics of the bill, which include the state’s police union, worry about empowering armed citizens any more.

Tennessee House Bill 2554 and Senate Bill 2523, introduced just last month, pertain to anyone 18 and older who has gone through eight extra hours of training (and paid a $100 fee) while obtaining their handgun carry permit. Under current state law, only on- and off-duty police officers can carry weapons into restaurants or other businesses that prohibit guns. And cops have to go through 12 weeks of training before being allowed to carry a firearm at all.

Originally, only people 21 and older could obtain the permit, but another bill introduced in January wants to extend those rights to non-military personnel people between the ages of 18 and 20. 

The proposal has caused some confusion and fierce debate in the state, as some critics have interpreted the language to extend certain responsibilities and rights of police officers, like detaining suspects, to normal citizens.

The bill’s summary on the Tennessee Legislature website proposes expanding “the definition of ‘law enforcement officer’ to include someone who has been issued an enhanced handgun carry permit.” The actual text of the bill, however, is clearer: The expanded definition would only apply to a portion of the state’s code that specifies where law enforcement officers can carry their weapons.

The authors of the bill, Republicans state Sen. Joey Hensley and Rep. Chris Hurt, didn’t respond to repeated attempts from VICE News for clarity on the intentions of the bill, but Hensley said the proposed language only gives responsible citizens more Second Amendment freedom.

“This is trying to open it up so that people who go to the extreme to get this extra permit can have the right to defend themselves in more places,” he told ABC News. 

Still, the state’s police union opposes the bill and has asked Tennessee residents to call their representatives.

“Some lawmakers are trying to include handgun permit holders as ‘law enforcement officers,’” a post on the Tennessee Fraternal Order of Police’s Facebook page reads. “Only those who have graduated from a law enforcement academy should be called a law enforcement officer.” 

And gun control groups are obviously not happy. 

“The process of obtaining a handgun permit doesn’t come anywhere close to the extensive training that real officers go through, and it’s ridiculous to equate the two,” Shannon Watts, founder of the gun safety group Moms Demand Action, told The Guardian. “Extremist and dangerous bills like these are part of the gun lobby’s blatant attempt to codify and legalize armed vigilantism.” 

Encouraging citizens to take legal matters into their own hands has had disastrous consequences in the past. In February 2020, three white men chased down 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, who they believed had committed a spate of robberies in their Georgia neighborhood, with the intention of detaining him until police arrived. One of them ended up shooting Arbery, and all three have since been convicted of murder.

Despite growing fury over the number of mass shootings in the U.S., several states have expanded gun rights and self-defense laws in the last few years. 

In Utah and Texas, for example, legislators have passed bills allowing residents to carry a handgun in public without a permit. Last year, Ohio legislators expanded its stand your ground law by doing away with the requirement that armed citizens retreat from potentially dangerous situations, before being allowed to use their weapon in self-defense. 

Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis successfully pushed local leaders to pass a similar bill meant to allow citizens to shoot other citizens suspected of looting. A federal judge, however, eventually blocked the bill for being too broad and for going against the First Amendment.

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