House Bill 2004 by Representative John Ray Clemmons (D) and companion Senate Bill 1896 by Senator Heidi Campbell (D)
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 39-17-1316, is amended by adding
the following as a new subsection:
(s)
(1) It is an offense for a person to knowingly give, loan, or transfer a firearm to
another that the person knows or reasonably should know is prohibited by state or
federal law from possessing a firearm.
(2) A violation of subdivision (s)(1) is a Class A misdemeanor.
SECTION 2. This act takes effect July 1, 2022, the public welfare requiring it.
The “reasonable” part is what gives me pause: Who defines “reasonably should know”? A politically driven prosecutor? A cop with some axe to grind? I have to hard pass on this one. I bet you hard cash that this bill will be touted as a solution for Straw Purchases, but it is going to end up affecting Aunt Rosie who may end up serving up to 11 months, 29 days in jail and / or fines up to $2,500.00. because he loaned Cousin Pedro a shotgun she had, and the sumbitch has a conviction for drugs.
The “we gotta do something “ about guns bills are all gonna come back around again…there are already laws in place…. Good luck.
Pretty sure there’s already a law in that regard on the Fed level.
What’s the point?
So much of a “lawmakers” job appears to be make-work, fluff and bullshit.
“Reasonableness” is ultimately determined by the jury.
They submit these bills every year. It’s good to track them but in general you never need to pay attention to any bill until it’s passed out of the first subcommittee it goes to.
“Worry” should only set in if it passes out of full committee without a fiscal note.
Do you know how to watch the meetings? They’re livestreamed.
““Reasonableness” is ultimately determined by the jury”
After a considerable expenditure of money by the defendant in legal fees and other crap. I like to avoid getting there altogether if possible.
“It’s good to track them but in general you never need to pay attention to any bill until it’s passed out of the first subcommittee it goes to.”
I need the practice 🙂
IANAL Warning… however, wizardpc is correct, ultimately it is the jury who determines.
The test of the reasonable man (sorry leftists, it is man. Deal with it.) asks what would a reasonable person do, in a similar situation, given a reasonable amount of info on the situation. Beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard that must be exceeded.
With several (well… plenty) exceptions, Rittenhouse being the most recent, most DAs do not waste a tremendous amount of time pursuing cases they have zero chance of winning. Granted, the politicians may push them into it, Zimmerman springs to mind, but no trial lawyer wants a loss on their record. So, they will ask themselves whether the jury will see this as reasonable actions or not, and if they cannot convince themselves beyond a reasonable doubt, they will never convince a jury.
The lesson here is just do not sell a gun to someone who seems sketchy, and get some assurance they are one of the good guys. Worst case, go through a FFL. Costs a small amount, but no DA will even think of charging you if you have that documentation.
There’s also the problem, in modern day jury practice, that the jury is told by the judge what all the terms mean and is not supposed to substitute their own judgment of the meaning of plain English words, the reasonable person’s judgment, or anything else. So if a judge decrees that this law means X, the jury is likely to obey even if the judge’s statement is blatantly wrong. Rittenhouse lucked out in that this didn’t happen to him, but it did happen to several other defendants in high profile recent cases (Chauvin comes to mind).
If juries returned to the practice of centuries past, as described so well by Lysander Spooner (“An essay on the Trial by Jury”, 1852), I’d be more comfortable accepting the notion you’re expressing.
Why do you think a jury will be involved? They like to just bury people in charges, drag things out until their lawyer has bankrupted them, and force them to plead guilty because they’re flat broke and facing 20 years if they go to trial.
Logical fallacy:
1) Something must be done.
2) This is something.
3) This must be done.
That’s been the law here in Oregon since well before I owned guns. It’s pretty much a state-level restatement of federal law. Why the pols thought it necessary, I don’t know, but it “entraps” about as many people as the federal law does … which is almost none.
The bill you need to watch out for is the one that criminalizes “transfers” between private citizens, especially if the definition of “transfer” is particularly broad. That passed here a few years back, and basically, gifts between immediate family are allowed (one’s spouse, of course, and one’s parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings, and the spouses of all of the above are OK … and I think first cousins, but no further than that), but loaning a shotgun to your friend for hunting season — even if you know for a fact he has no criminal record and he has a CHL to prove it — is illegal. All transfers outside of family must go through a FFL and pass a background check (which goes through the State Police, and gets recorded [read: registered]) … and they charge for both the transfer and background check.
As you noted, it was passed as a measure to combat straw purchases. Funny thing, though: I haven’t heard of anyone charged for violating it. Not even gun-running gang-bangers.
It’s as if they only wanted it as a deterrent for the law-abiding, or something.