By: Anthony Morelli
A top Republican official has just created an incredibly dangerous gun control situation.
He apparently did not have the stomach to fight back against the anti-gun lobby.
And he caved to them in a very shocking surrender.
Republicans are a mixed bag on gun control. Some of them are very pro-gun and are willing to take difficult stands, while others simply let the gun control lobby walk all over them.
Unfortunately, the attorney general for the state of Tennessee seems to be a case of the latter.
The city of Memphis is trying to undermine the pro-gun laws of the state through a ballot referendum process which is intended to push gun control.
Needless to say, this is unacceptable, as the state of Tennessee has laws that protect the freedoms of gun owners, and the city of Memphis does not have the right to infringe on that.
But that is not stopping them from trying. The AG’s office filed a lawsuit against them, but a judge refused to strike down the referendum.
The obvious move for the AG would have been to appeal it, but he decided not to do that.
According to News Channel 3 in Memphis, “Tennessee’s attorney general is calling Memphis’ effort to place a referendum on gun control measures in the city a ‘futile stunt’ that could incur hefty legal fees.
“However, the office will not file an emergency appeal to stop them.”
It is bizarre that the AG, Jonathan Skrmetti, recognizes how bad this political stunt is, and yet refuses to take the next legal step to put an end to it.
This referendum is going to harm the people of Memphis and the people of Tennessee, and yet Republicans in the state government are not doing everything they can to stop it.
Here’s what Skrmetti said: “These ballot questions are a fraud on the voters of Memphis. They will not change the law. This is a futile stunt that wastes time and money when the city council should focus on ensuring existing laws are enforced. However, we respect the court’s analysis of whether the vote should proceed and will not file an emergency appeal. This is Memphis’s mistake to make and will ultimately be Memphis’s mistake to pay for, as the state preemption law authorizes triple attorney’s fees against cities in violation.”
Filing an appeal would not mean that the AG’s office isn’t “respecting the court’s analysis” – it simply means that he would be appealing to a different court.
People have a right to do that in America’s legal system. Appeals happen all the time, and they are perfectly valid.
Perhaps the appeal would succeed, and perhaps it wouldn’t, but the only way to find out is to try it, and Skrmetti is refusing to do that.
This means that a gun control referendum is going to move forward in a state that ostensibly doesn’t allow it.
Conservative gun owners in Tennessee should demand more from their elected representatives to defend the Second Amendment.