Tennessee lawmakers seek to ease gun restrictions

From the Volunteer State:

NASHVILLE -- Tennessee legislators have filed a rash of new bills to allow guns in state and local parks, restaurants serving alcohol and even schools and also limiting public access to lists of gun-carry permit holders.

Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, who is sponsoring two of the gun bills, said Thursday he believes the measures stand a much better chance of passing this year as a result of the new GOP majority in the legislature.

Supported by the Tennessee Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association, lawmakers have tried for years to pass bills allowing gun-carry permit holders to take their guns into places serving alcohol as long as they are not drinking themselves, but the legislation was killed in House subcommittees controlled by Democrats.

This year, with the state House reorganized under a nominal GOP majority, the volume of bills loosening restrictions on where permit-holders may take guns has sharply increased. So has the scope of places the bills propose to allow the guns, including state and local public parks, colleges and universities and potentially into high schools.

There is also a renewed push this year on bills to make confidential the identities of gun-carry permit holders at the state Department of Safety, the licensing agency, and to make it a crime for anyone, including media organizations, to publish identities of anyone with the permits. Currently, applications bear a disclaimer that information submitted is subject to the state public records law.

Article here.