In 2008, Barack Obama, running for the Democratic nomination for president, stepped in a bit of political cow plop when talking about disaffected working-class voters in faded industrial towns.
“[T]hey cling to guns or religion,” he said in comments that provided an easy opening for his chief opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She quickly jumped on the remarks as “elitist and out of touch.”
But were they? Or was Obama right about how some people align themselves with two issues that are pretty much at cross purposes? Let’s look at guns, religion and the clingy Tennessee General Assembly. Guns first.
You could spend a good deal of time tracking every legislative measure that includes the word “firearms” – so much time that I avoid doing so. It’s enough to know that pro-gun bills are much more likely to pass than anti-gun bills. Much, much more likely.
House Bill 2882 is, in theory, neither pro nor con. It would mandate, beginning in 2025-26, that public schools teach students “safe storage of firearms; school safety relating to firearms; how to avoid injury if the student finds a firearm; to never touch a found firearm; and to immediately notify an adult of the location of a found firearm.”
When the bill came under consideration by the House last month, Rep. Jason Powell offered an amendment that would have allowed parents or guardians to opt their children out of the training.
“For far too many children in our state who have been permanently traumatized by gun violence,” he said, “subjecting them to this education has the possibility of retraumatizing them.”
Rep. John Ragan, speaking against the amendment, compared the bill’s mandate to other safety instructions already taught in schools by law.
“It is in the same category as teaching children how to walk across the street safely,” Ragan said. “What red lights mean, what green lights mean, what walk, don’t walk means. To respond to tornado drills properly, to respond to fire drills properly. ... There is no reason to have anyone opt out of that.”
It’s a fine comparison, except that it doesn’t work. Gun violence isn’t just another of the acceptable risks of living in the modern world, like traffic; or an uncontrollable danger created by nature, like tornadoes; or a threat often posed through accidental means, like fire.
Gun violence increasingly occurs because our society – unlike almost all others in the world – prioritizes gun access and freedom over real safety and gun-owner responsibility. But legislators don’t want children armed with that knowledge.
It’s bad enough that active shooter drills have had to become a normal part of classroom instruction. But at least they impart a valuable lesson: Guns + school = bad.
And though the bill states the instruction is supposed to be “viewpoint neutral on political topics, such as gun rights, gun violence, and the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Powell said – perhaps with understatement – “I have concerns that that might not be adhered to.”
So do I. Likewise, though the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Chris Todd, said the measure “doesn’t indicate there’s going to be a firearm in the classroom whatsoever,” it doesn’t prohibit it. There’s not supposed to be ammunition involved, but we’ve all heard “unloaded” gun tales that ended badly.
Now for religion. House Bill 2125 would designate November as “Christian Heritage Month to encourage citizens to learn more about Christian heritage in this state.”
When that bill came before the House, Rep. Aftyn Behn described ruefully how it had sailed through the Public Service Subcommittee while a resolution of hers before the same subcommittee asking that state agencies consult a multifaith calendar before scheduling official events died without so much as a single murmur of support.
“I just wanted to highlight that we, in this body, represent a diverse group of constituents and communities across the state that deserve not to feel alienated or isolated because of one religious ideology,” she said.
The House, unmoved by Behn’s appeal to reason, passed the bill with a lopsided margin. I expect a similarly warm reception in the Senate, which I guess shows which religion legislators cling to and which ones they don’t.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.