NASHVILLE — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Wednesday appealed to state lawmakers on a bipartisan basis to “set aside politics and personal pride” and pass an “extreme risk” order of protection measure intended to keep firearms away from people who pose a threat to others.
“We are standing at a crossroads,” the governor said in a video seeking to draw in the public as he works to persuade fellow Republicans in the GOP-led General Assembly to approve the measure following the March 27 shooting deaths of six people, three of them children, at a Christian elementary school in Nashville by a former student police said had mental health problems.
“Tennesseans are asking us to set aside politics and personal pride,” the governor said. “They are depending on us to do the right thing.”
The governor said that since the shootings at The Covenant School, his administration has worked with the General Assembly to pass “our school safety legislation by wide bipartisan margins.”
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