House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, confers with colleagues and staff in the House chamber in Nashville on Feb. 4, 2015.NASHVILLE — House Republican leaders on Thursday defended their plans to strip a Senate amendment from a bill which originally allowed handgun-carry permit holders to go armed in local parks but now also lets them go armed in the state “Capitol complex.”
“It was poorly drafted and it jeopardizes the entire bill,” House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, told reporters during a news conference with other top GOP leaders Thursday. The amended bill will come up again in next week’s House session.
Harwell said the amendment would impact “all the security we have everywhere. It’s not just the Capitol. It’s all the buildings surrounding the Capitol. Obviously it was not offered in a constructive fashion.” State safety officials “would have to have extra people down there” to check people’s state-issued handgun carry permit cards, she added.
Harwell also said it could draw a veto from Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, who already has concerns about the guns-in-parks bill.
Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Jeff Yarbro on Wednesday offered the amendment to Republican legislators’ push to overturn local bans on guns in parks. House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, said the objective of the amendment “was to kill the bill.”