There’s more than a whiff of racism hanging over the Tennessee state house this morning, where Republican lawmakers on Thursday expelled two of three Democrats who took part in a rowdy gun control protest on the chamber floor, The Guardian reports.
Those ousted are Black, while the third, who survived the expulsion vote, is white. Their perceived crime was “breaking decorum” for joining constituents demanding tighter gun laws in the wake of last week’s Covenant school shooting in Nashville that killed six, including three nine-year-olds, according to the report.
Reaction to the expulsions has been swift as observers mull elements of racism, gun rights and an attack on democracy. Joe Biden called it “undemocratic”, while Martin Luther King III said on CNN Friday: “Racism is still very real … we have got to eradicate this evil”, The Guardian report added.
A statement issued by The White House recalled that last week, three more students and three school officials were gunned down in yet another tragic mass shooting in Nashville. The statement further added, "On Monday, 7,000 Tennesseans, many of them students, marched to their state capitol to call on their lawmakers to take action and keep them safe. Instead, state Republican lawmakers called votes today to expel Democratic legislators who stood in solidarity with students and families and helped lift their voices."
Today’s expulsion of lawmakers who engaged in peaceful protest is "shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent," the statement said and added, "rather than debating the merits of the issue, these Republican lawmakers have chosen to punish, silence, and expel duly-elected representatives of the people of Tennessee." "A strong majority of Americans want lawmakers to act on commonsense gun safety reforms that we know will save lives. But instead, we’ve continued to see Republican officials across America double down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship, and communities less safe. Our kids continue to pay the price," the statement said. Congress must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and require background checks for all gun sales, and state officials must do the same, it added.
