Another Gunfight Is Looming in Tennessee

Red-state legislatures are the incubator and the proving ground of many varieties of right-wing nutjobbery that go on to affect national policy, but most people give no thought to what happens in their chambers. Even here in the South — where, to all appearances, our legislatures gather mainly to subvert democracy and rend the social safety net — few people seemed to be paying attention last week when the Tennessee General Assembly convened in Nashville for the new legislative session.

But a bipartisan coalition of gun-safety advocates, some of them people who a year ago could not have imagined spending their days at the Capitol, were doing far more than paying attention. Here in Tennessee, firearms are the leading cause of death in children, and these voters are determined to do something about that.

Poll after poll and referendum after referendum make it clear that Republican legislators are out of step with their own voters on a host of topics. And for parents, especially, none is more urgent than the issue of guns. Whether they are Democrats or Republicans makes no difference: Parents are desperate to find a way to keep children from being murdered in their classrooms.

Around here, though, voters’ priorities don’t concern G.O.P. leaders. Instead, they want to ban Pride flags — or any political or identity-based flag — in public schools. They want to limit who can speak and for how long on the House floor. They want to control which Tennesseans can sit in the House gallery to monitor — and possibly protest — legislative proceedings.