A National Rifle Association billboard in Hendersonville, Tenn., attacks Tennessee House Republican Caucus Chairwoman Debra Maggart. The gun rights group has had a falling out with Republican lawmakers in Tennessee over a bill seeking to guarantee workers the right to store their guns in their cars while at work.By ERIK SCHELZIG
Associated Press
NASHVILLE – Threats, denunciations and verbal potshots between the National Rifle Association and the leaders of the Legislature were common in the decades that Democrats ran the show in the Tennessee Capitol. Turns out Republicans are just as good at running afoul of the powerful gun rights group.
GOP leaders in Nashville infuriated the NRA this year by refusing to go along with a bill to prevent businesses from banning guns on their property, and now the group is using its deep pockets to try to unseat one of them. Elsewhere, NRA-backed measures also ran into Republican roadblocks in Georgia, Alabama, Idaho and North Carolina this year.
The NRA notes recent successes in the legislatures of Virginia, Ohio and South Carolina, describing the recent setbacks as temporary.