MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tennessee lawmakers announced Wednesday they are reintroducing a bill to allow large cities in Tennessee to regulate safe gun storage in cars.
This comes in the wake of the state legislature's threat to withhold sales tax revenue from the city of Memphis for wanting to ask voters if they favor stricter gun safety measures.
According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), Memphis has the highest rate of guns stolen from cars in the country. Regulations on gun storage was one of the measures the city hoped to ask voters about before the state made them remove it from the November 2024 ballot.
Vanderbilt University’s Jessica Trounstine, a professor of political science since 2004, said that from a historical perspective, this is “unprecedented.”
“I have never encountered a situation where a state withheld general pots of money in this way in response to a particular policy disagreement,” she said.
State preemption is nothing new for the city of Memphis. It was in March 2024 that the state legislature passed a bill overturning a city ordinance outlawing pretextual traffic stops after the beating death of Tyre Nichols.
“All powers that cities have in the United States are given to them by state governments,” Professor Trounstine said.
However, Memphis is a 'Home Rule' city, a legal status where cities can make important policy decisions independent of the state government. Memphis used this status to help get Confederate statues removed in 2017.
“It has often been the case historically that jurisdictions at the local level can be more restrictive than the state government, but not less restrictive,” Professor Trounstine said. “But that is not always true.”
But in order for local governments to overrule the state, they usually have to get the courts involved.
“It would have to do with, ‘What are the Tennessee guidelines around Home Rule and what does Home Rule permit cities in Tennessee to do?’” Professor Trounstine said.
Other state lawmakers said gun safety is something voters across Tennessee support.
“There have been four or five statewide quality polls, and each one of them have said the legislature is out of step with what they want in terms of the core common sense gun measures,” Representative Caleb Hemmer (D-Nashville) said during a Wednesday press conference.
Professor Trounstine does not see this rift between Memphis and state lawmakers going away.
“I think that this is only going to increase,” she said. “And I am not optimistic about these parties leaving each other alone.”
The city of Memphis has not made any indication on whether or not they intend to seek legal action over the referenda, which the Shelby County Election Commission has said they will not put on the ballot.