Bill would require Tennessee schools to teach gun safety
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. – It’s a scenario that plays out all too often in Memphis and the Mid-South; a child gets their hands on a gun and the consequences can be deadly.
If a new bill proposed in Tennessee becomes law, schools would be required to teach gun safety to students.
The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis), requires departments of education and safety to determine the earliest grade in which it’s appropriate for students to begin receiving instruction on firearm safety.
Departments would be required to study “all relevant data and risk factors, including the earliest age at which incidents of injury involving firearms are reported and the earliest age at which children are susceptible to harm from found firearms.”
Those gun safety courses would start in the 2025-26 school year, under the bill. Each LEA and public charter school would provide students with “age-appropriate and grade-appropriate” instruction on firearm safety. Starting with the earliest appropriate grade as determined by the department of education, the courses would continue until a student graduates high school.
According to the bill, the firearm safety instruction provided must “Teach students safe storage of firearms, school safety relating to firearms, how to avoid injury if the student finds a firearm, to never touch a found firearm, and to immediately notify an adult of the location of a found firearm and be viewpoint neutral on political topics, such as gun rights, gun violence, and the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.” No live ammunition, live fire or live firearms are allowed in the instruction, according to the bill.
The bill, known as House Bill 2882 and Senate Bill 2923, is currently working its way through both the House and Senate. It was introduced to the House on January 31, 2024 and the House on February 1, 2024.
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