The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

A GOP governor touched by tragedy makes rare push for gun law

Tennessee’s Bill Lee is pushing what is commonly known as a red-flag law. But in a reflection of the difficult politics, he doesn’t want to call it that.

Then-Tennessee Gov.-elect Bill Lee (R) listens as then-President Donald Trump participates in a meeting with governors-elect in the Cabinet Room at White House in December 2018. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
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Post-mass-shooting gun politics in the United States have become largely predictable. Democrats will push new gun laws, and at most a small handful of Republicans — often in the affected states — will talk about entertaining some ideas. Then stasis reigns, after memories fade and gun-rights advocates assert their will.

But there have been some exceptions. One came last year, when Congress passed its most significant gun laws in nearly three decades after a mass killing at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex. Another came in 2018, when GOP-controlled Florida codified new restrictions after a mass killing at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) has now signaled he’ll attempt some of what Florida did after a mass killing in his home state left a close family friend dead.

But even the way he talks about it reinforces the difficulty that lies ahead, as does the initial reaction from his side of the aisle.

Lee on Wednesday announced that he was calling on the Tennessee legislature to pass what he called an “order of protection” law, otherwise known as a red-flag law. This would allow courts to take away firearms from people for up to six months if they are deemed a risk to those around them.

Were Tennessee to pass such a law, it would become only the third red state to have one on the books, after Indiana and Florida.

Some saw improving prospects for such laws after Florida’s 2018 bill (which also included raising the age for firearms purchases to 21). And Congress’s guns package last year, which included grants for states with red-flag laws, received more than a dozen GOP votes in both the House and Senate.

But other than that, there’s been little movement. And quickly on Wednesday, the NRA announced its opposition, and Tennessee’s state House Republican Caucus said, “Any red flag law is a non-starter.”

So as Lee began the process of selling the proposal, he made a point to reject the “red flag” label.

“‘Red flag’ is nothing but a toxic political label meant to draw lines in the sand so nothing is done,” Lee said, adding of his proposal: “It should be reviewed on its own merits, not lumped in with laws from other states.”

Lee’s proposal is indeed different from other states’ red-flag laws. Unlike most of the 19 states with such laws, it allows only law enforcement to seek such an order — not family, household members or health professionals. And while those states allow for initially removing guns through ex parte hearings — meaning before a full hearing can be held with the person present — the Tennessee proposal doesn’t allow for that. All of that is clearly aimed at making it more palatable to the right.

But the proposal is, for all intents and purposes, quite similar to laws that have been widely labeled red-flag laws. And proponents of such laws haven’t generally shied away from that label.

A year after signing the Florida bill into law as governor over the objections of the NRA, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) published an op-ed in The Washington Post re-upping his support for what he called “red-flag laws.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) used the term last year while forging Congress’s bipartisan gun deal and facing down his intraparty critics. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has also used the term while promoting the idea.

Polling has shown that the concept of red-flag laws is overwhelmingly popular, with a Monmouth University survey last year showing that three-quarters of Americans support such a law, even when it is called a red-flag law.

Lee’s motivation is apparent, and this is probably smart politics (irrespective of whether it actually works). He wants to differentiate his proposal in a deep-red state from what mostly blue states have done. And there are differences, as noted above.

But the fact that even this label has apparently become too “toxic” is certainly a commentary on our times. It’s not a loaded political term invented by the NRA to make the idea seem scarier; it’s a pretty apt description of a law that aims to remove guns from people whose actions raise red flags.

Lee’s caution didn’t come out of nowhere. After Florida’s bill passed in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy, even the NRA briefly appeared to signal a potential loosening in its opposition to red-flag laws. Shortly thereafter, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) released a plan that encouraged the state legislature to look at implementing red-flag laws, in response to mass shootings in his own state. Then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) floated such laws in 2018 and 2019. Then-President Donald Trump also floated them in 2019, after mass killings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso.

But each time, it became clear there was little appetite for going down Florida’s path. These same big-name Republicans asserted that the proposals were unworkable and in some cases clarified that they hadn’t necessarily supported them. Trump never followed through, despite suggesting that he was uniquely able to take on an NRA that other Republicans were scared of. By the time Cornyn was forging Congress’s gun bill last year — a bill that he emphasized didn’t codify any new red-flag laws — it earned him boos at the state GOP convention, where his critics chanted, “no red flag.”

That same month, Lee was very much in line with that segment of the party. Less than two weeks after the tragedy in Uvalde, Lee drew a line in the sand on new gun laws.

“We’re not looking at gun restriction laws in my administration right now. Criminals don’t follow laws; criminals break laws — whether they are a gun law, a drug law, criminals break laws,” Lee said. “We can’t control what they do.”

A tragedy that has hit closer to home appears to have changed Lee’s posture. And while the proposal’s prospects don’t appear great, it’s a rare instance in which a Republican is actually going to bat for one.

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