By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Voters in Memphis, Tenn., approved three gun control ballot measures which may, or may not, lead to the adoption of actual ordinances, thanks to the state’s firearms preemption law.
According to WREG News, between 80% and 84% of Memphis voters approved each of the measures, which dealt with carrying firearms without a permit within the city limits, whether the city should allow the sale of so-called “assault weapons” and whether they support “red flag” laws.
But state law is pretty clear. As quoted on the Giffords website, “[T]he general assembly preempts the whole field of the regulation of firearms, ammunition, or components of firearms or ammunition, or combinations thereof including, but not limited to, the use, purchase, transfer, taxation, manufacture, ownership, possession, carrying, sale, acquisition, gift, devise, licensing, registration, storage, and transportation thereof, to the exclusion of all county, city, town, municipality, or metropolitan government law, ordinances, resolutions, enactments or regulation. No county, city, town, municipality, or metropolitan government nor any local agency, department, or official shall occupy any part of the field regulation of firearms, ammunition or components of firearms or ammunition, or combinations thereof.”
The Memphis Commercial Appeal is reporting “the (three) referenda act as trigger laws that would not go into effect without exemptions being made in state law by the Tennessee General Assembly.” It might be unlikely the legislature would okay such an exemption because to do so would be a precedent which could open the preemption law for other challenges.
Tennessee is one of more than 40 states with preemption laws, which create uniformity of gun regulation from one state border to the other.
Gun control was on the back burner in most jurisdictions on Tuesday, with voters deciding other issues across the country, including putting Donald J. Trump back in the White House for another four years beginning in January.
