As policy director for The Safe Tennessee Project, I was asked by a public policy class at Vandy to participate in a discussion on gun policy. - In the interest of providing citations for my responses, below are a series of topics from the discussion and my responses (with hyperlinks) as well as additional information that may be helpful to the students.
Read moreThe accidental shooting of a 3-year-old boy Monday night with his father’s unsecured gun is another example of an alarming Tennessee trend. Accidental shootings of both children and especially adults are up dramatically from the end of August 2015. Although both counts are higher from this time last year, the number of adult-involved accidental shootings is particularly startling. “At the end of last August, we’d
Read more“When it comes to determining how to best keep college campuses safe, it would only make sense to listen to campus police and the Tennessee Association of Police Chiefs. And yet, not only did our legislators disregard their adamant opposition to this bill, so did our governor. According to campus police chiefs, not only will this new law make campuses
Read moreThe poll was sent to all faculty associated with the Knoxville campus, including UTK, UTIA, and UTSI. It included the following information: Tennessee lawmakers are considering a bill (HB1736) that would allow faculty and staff to carry concealed weapons, with a permit, on campus at public colleges and universities in the UT and Tennessee Board of Regents systems. Both university
Read moreOn Tuesday, the Senate voted 28 to 5 to pass SB2376 by Sen. Mike Bill. The bill requires all Tennessee public colleges and universities to allow permit-holding faculty and staff to carry guns on campus. Pointing out that there is a “diversity of opinion” on the issue of allowing guns on campus, Sen. Lee Harris offered an amendment would have
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