Chicago 8/Tennessee 3
While grappling with last week’s news of the Tennessee Three, I found myself watching The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix for the second time. The movie ignited some nostalgia upon the first viewing, but this time its power was pertinent to the present.
The film depicts the trial of eight anti-war activists in the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where demonstrators clashed with heavily armed police and National Guard troops. In one scene, Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, who was the sole Black defendant—and the only one being tried without an attorney—is bound, gagged, and chained to his courtroom chair at the general instruction of the judge. It wounded me to think that half a century later our country still finds people in power making dictatorial choices about what can’t be allowed in a democracy.
The actions of the Tennessee legislature rub salt in that wound. Perhaps none of the Tennessee Three was chained to a chair, but they were effectively gagged when disallowed to speak on issues important to them and their constituents. And ultimately, two of the three were ousted from the legislature, leaving their communities without representation. I don’t think it is coincidental that those two are Black.
These three duly elected members of the Tennessee House of Representatives felt so strongly about the need for gun legislation in the wake of the recent school shooting in Nashville—where three nine-year-olds and three adults were murdered—that they joined protestors who had gathered at the state capitol to vocally urge legislators to do something to protect Tennessee’s school children and staff.
According to the Washington Post, there have been 377 school shootings since 1999. At least 199 people were killed in these shootings, and another 424 were injured. More than 349,000 children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours.
While the concept of school shootings is not absolutely peculiar to the United States, it’s close. Mexico, the country with the second highest rate, had only 8 such shootings in the same timespan.
Regardless of one’s stance on gun ownership or how to curb gun violence in schools, it’s difficult to deny that school-shootings are a bonafide issue that has the public’s attention—hence should also interest lawmakers. The Tennessee Three, who were elected by the citizenry of their communities, were doing their jobs, even if a bit unconventionally.
I accept that the actions of representatives Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson likely violated some code of conduct for a House in session. And perhaps that merits an act of censure. But the Republican controlled House simply chose to vote them out of office with utter disregard for constituents who elected these people. The three had committed no crime—just pressured a legislative body disinterested in instituting gun control to listen to the other side of the argument.
There does exist an undeniable precedent for gun control laws: Prior to 1967, California allowed open carry of firearms. But when Black Panther Party members carried guns to the state capital to protest police brutality, the Mulford Act was passed, signed by then governor Ronald Reagan and endorsed by the NRA, prohibiting the open carry of firearms without a permit. It is still illegal to carry firearms without a permit in that state.
Something to ponder: If bands of Black Panthers were currently parading around with loaded firearms in permitless carry states, would legislators have such a knee-jerk resistance to the discussion of gun control?