Retribution for gun protest
Tennessee legislature ejects two Democrats
4/7/2023 6:43 am
After a shooting in Nashville, many people demonstrate for stricter gun laws. It will also include three Democrats from the Tennessee House of Representatives. The Republican-led legislature compares them to Capitol strikers – and enforces their expulsion.
The Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives has expelled two Democrats. Another MEP, who was also to be expelled, barely survived the vote. The three people’s representatives took part in a demonstration in parliament last week for stricter gun laws.
According to The Tennessean newspaper, their behavior brought disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives, according to resolutions introduced by Republicans calling for their expulsion. After the exclusion, citizens protested loudly in the parliament building. Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton compared the three MPs to the attackers who stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, according to a New York Times report.
The two expelled deputies were both black. The third MP not expelled was white. She was a former teacher who had lost a student to gun violence.
The unprecedented effort to remove the three from office is a fresh escalation of partisan grudges raging in some states. In some cases, Republican-led parliaments have taken steps to marginalize Democrats, particularly on gun laws and social issues.
According to the Gun Violence Archive website, more than 20,200 people were killed by guns last year, not including suicides. Attempts to tighten gun laws repeatedly failed due to opposition from Republicans and the powerful gun lobby.
“Erosion of decency and democratic norms”
US President Joe Biden described the Nashville process Twitter as shocking, undemocratic and unprecedented. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the expelled lawmakers showed solidarity with children and families who were peacefully demonstrating for tougher gun laws. In Tennessee and across the US, children have paid the price for Republican lawmakers resisting passing such legislation, Jean-Pierre said. Former US President Barack Obama called what happened in the Tennessee House of Representatives an example of “a broader erosion of decency and democratic norms.”
The protests, in which the lawmakers attended, came after three children and three adults were killed by an attacker at a Nashville elementary school in late March. According to police reports, the suspected shooter was shot dead by police officers after the attack. It was a 28-year-old woman who used to go to school herself, it said. She was armed with at least two assault rifles and one handgun.