BRISTOL, Tenn. – Add Bristol to the list of Tennessee cities rushing to keep their residents from carrying handguns in public parks.
Bristol’s City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on a resolution banning residents from possessing handguns in the municipal parks. And two council members have already left no doubt that they will strongly back the ban.
“I fully support it,” Councilwoman Margaret Feierabend said Thursday regarding the no-handgun resolution. “Guns don’t have a place in our parks, and people need to know they don’t have a place there.”
Councilman David Shumaker said: “Absolutely, I won’t have a bit of trouble voting for the (resolution). There’s no reason on earth somebody needs to carry a gun in one of our parks.”
Bristol will join Johnson City among the Tennessee cities quickly reacting to an approved state law, scheduled to take effect Sept. 1, that will allow handgun permit holders to carry their guns into public parks.
The state law, however, allows local communities to keep banning handguns in the parks – if they pass new legislation that specifically says so.
Johnson City commissioners unanimously approved a no-handgun resolution Thursday. Memphis, Chattanooga and Nashville are among other Tennessee cities weighing similar actions.
Bristol Police Chief Blaine Wade said Thursday that his department backs the proposed council resolution. Wade said the ban would make things “much easier” for his officers as they patrol city parks.
But John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, said Bristol and other cities couldn’t use a loophole – even one provided by the state – to avoid obeying the new law allowing handguns in public parks. Tennessee officials simply didn’t have the constitutional authority to give such power to state cities, Harris said.
It’s like if you elect a judge to serve on the bench and administer the law,” Harris said, “but when you have a case before him, he says he doesn’t feel like dealing with it and gives it to his bailiff to hear.”
Harris said this association might take legal action if handgun permit owners aren’t allowed to carry their weapons in public parks when the approved state law takes effect Sept. 1.
rbrown@bristolnews.com/276-645-2512.
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