Governor Bill Lee has signed legislation preempting local municipalities from enforcing extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), commonly known as red flag laws, which allow judges and police to temporarily take away someone’s guns if they’re at risk of harming themselves or others, despite his push for extreme risk protection orders before the Special Session in 2023.

Gov. Lee signs bill preventing local government from enacting red flag laws

"Artemis Rayford was 12 years old when he wrote a letter last year to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, expressing concern about a new state law that allows most adults to legally carry a gun without a permit."

“I am a sixth-grader at Sherwood Middle School, and it is my opinion that this new law will be bad, and people will be murdered,” Artemis wrote the governor."

When Artemis’s teachers found out about his death, one of them sent his mother a photo of the letter that was addressed to Lee.

"His prediction came true. Artemis was murdered on Christmas morning. Memphis police say a stray bullet took his life."

Do most mass shootings happen in "gun free zones?" Mark Harmon has done the research to prove otherwise.

Research, incredible students make case for gun restrictions

Former state senator Stacey Campfield recently blurted on a Knoxville radio program that most mass shootings occur in gun-free zones. This falsehood has been promoted by Sean Hannity and President Donald Trump, and has bounced around the right-wing echo chamber for years.

PolitiFact generously rated the statement half true, but the only true part is that you can find a pro-gun group that came to that conclusion by cobbling together a tally based on some dubious definitions. For example, the tally called Fort Hood and the Washington Navy Yard gun-free zones despite the presence of armed guards (and lots of other weapons).

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