Before a Davidson County Chancery Court judge blocked the rule, gun-sense advocates took to writing messages on their own bodies or projecting them from phone screens.

“I had not understood the term in a meaningful way until this week, until I could feel it viscerally in the silencing of our dissent, in the ignoring of our presence, and our silent and present plea for gun safety — in the day-in and day-out legislating despite our desperation.

Last spring, Republicans inadvertently turned the Tennessee Three — Democratic Representatives Justin J. Pearson and Gloria Johnson, in addition to Mr. Jones — into beloved national political figures with formidable fund-raising power.

Bill Lee announced in his 2022 State of the State address that he had asked Hillsdale College, a private Christian institution, to open 50 charter schools featuring a hyper-conservative curriculum designed to create “informed patriots.” A few months later, NewsChannel 5 aired video of Hillsdale’s president making extremely disparaging comments about public schoolteachers, and Republican legislators distanced themselves from the governor’s plan faster than you can say “politically expedient.”

“We need legislators on both sides of the aisle to be able to have respectful, thoughtful debate regarding potential solutions to end gun violence,” a Covenant parent, Sarah Shoop Neumann, said at a news conference after the close of the do-nothing special session.

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