The Charles Strobel memorial issue of The Contributor was a big seller at my spot. I sold out in record time. Most everyone who bought one remarked at what a great man Charlie was and how much good he had done for everyone in Nashville and beyond. So I went to town to buy some more at the office.
As the bus pulled into Metro Center, I noticed that there was a large group of people holding signs calling for an end to gun violence in Tennessee outside one of the doors to the Cordell Hull legislative office building. They all seemed animated and ready for the events of the brutally hot day, God bless them! But I don’t imagine ANY NUMBER of people we could turn out to protest our legislator’s blind indifference to the horror of what’s going on in our communities relating to guns would make one bit of difference to what the legislature will eventually fail to accomplish.
One interesting, but little mentioned, item on Gov. Bill Lee’s special session agenda is a call to use involuntary commitments to lock up folks deemed a danger to themselves or others. Instead of temporarily taking away the guns of dangerous people, we’ll just confine them in a mental health facility until they calm down. These involuntary commitments could apply to anyone the legislature wants them to. Like you, for instance, even if you don’t own a gun and aren’t a threat to anyone.
This is a notion proposed by the far-right Cicero Institute’s senior fellow, Judge Glock, and sent to all Republican legislatures across the country to deal with homeless citizens. This involuntary commitment strategy was a part of proposed bills HB1192/SB1334 until it was stripped from the House bill after a hue and cry from homelessness advocates. The bill is still active in the Senate and will be taken up again when legislators return in January. We couldn’t go through a session of the Tennessee legislature without them taking a swipe at the homeless.
But now, using homicidal gun owners as cover, maybe the involuntary commitments the legislators wanted to inflict on the homeless will sail through with little resistance from the general public. Look how clever our Republicans are! And is it a coincidence that Tennessee just asked the federal government for a waiver to use Medicaid money to fund new mental health initiatives? Aren’t Republicans always screaming, “Get DC out of Tennessee!”
Walking back to Metro Center down Rep. John Lewis Way I saw a group of men dressed in black with guns strapped to their hips. One had a shield strapped to his back with a bright yellow insignia of a far-right group. They turned up toward the Capitol. I heard that the Proud Boys unfurled a banner on the railing in front of the Capitol. Who invited them? I wonder if all the fine, privileged, churchgoing Tennesseans who marked their ballots for legislative Republicans knew that they were voting for roving bands of armed vigilantes in their communities.
I couldn’t help but think what dear Charlie would make of such a threatening display on the streets of his beloved Nashville. I know he’d quote Isaiah, “And a little child will lead them.”
And so, In the names of Jamayla Marlowe – 3, Taliyah Frazier – 4, Evelyn Dieckhaus – 9, Hallie Scruggs – 9, William Kinney – 9, and the scores of other children torn to pieces by guns in Tennessee, we demand that the legislators fix what they have broken. Put an end to the proliferation of guns in our communities. Strengthen background checks. Make safe storage mandatory. Do everything in your power to protect our children from the lone gunman on a twisted mission with an AR-15. You were elected to keep our children safe. Do your job!