On the state Senate floor last week, Sen. Brian Kelsey brought up a resolution that he explained as putting senators on record as declaring “if the federal government tries to infringe on our rights as American citizens, then we will intervene and fight for those rights.”
This prompted Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris to ask his fellow Republican how the resolution (SR17) differed from perhaps the most prominent of several bills introduced this year to nullify federal laws and subject federal officers to prosecution should they try to enforce them.
The question was a bit of a gibe at Kelsey because Norris knew the answer. A resolution — especially one that faces a vote only in the Senate and not in the House — amounts only to a rhetorical statement.
And the resolution merely expresses the Senate’s “firm intention and resolve to fully marshal the legal resources of the state” to see that any federal laws violating 2nd Amendment rights are challenged in court.
“Are we going to go out and simply start shooting people? No,” said Kelsey, R-Germantown. “When we have disputes we do not resort to warfare and shooting.”
That brought Sen. Mae Beavers, R-Mount Juliet, to her feet to declare that her bill (SB250) did not call for shooting federal agents, merely their arrest. As originally drafted, federal officers enforcing gun laws would have faced a felony prosecution, though that was amended to a misdemeanor.
Kelsey took a lead role in killing Beavers’ bill, which declared the state Legislature has authority to nullify federal gun laws and, once nullified, make FBI or ATF agents subject to arrest if they tried to enforce them. If failed after lengthy debate before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Kelsey chairs.
The measure is an example of what some Democrats call “the crazy bills.” Without referring to specific bills, House Speaker Beth Harwell has implored Republicans to steer clear of “fringe” legislation. Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey has lamented bills that are “a distraction.” Gov. Bill Haslam has chided media for focusing its reporting on the “craziest legislation.”
At the outset of the 108th General Assembly, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner, among others, voiced fear that the new Republican supermajority would “run amok” enacting “all these right-wing extremist bills.”
With just two weeks remaining until the end of the first supermajority session, that has not been the case. Many legislators credit this to the generally quiet efforts of Harwell and Ramsey or, to a lesser extent, Haslam.

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