Key TN Senate Republican proposes tougher penalties for threats of mass violence

As debate on gun confiscation has swirled across the state, Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Ferrell Haile, R-Gallatin, has worked through the summer to identify a proposal that could help prevent mass violence that Covenant families and the National Rifle Association can agree on.

“We’ve threaded a needle,” Haile said in an interview. “It’s taken three months of working with this and talking with lots of people to try and come to something that is meaningful, that will make a difference.”

Haile has drafted legislation to make any threat of violence against four or more people a felony, regardless of whether the violence could be committed with a firearm, vehicle, bomb, or other weapon. Penalties would be heightened if the threat is made against a school, church, government building, or other location where 250 or more people visit each day. Currently, threats of mass violence at a school are a misdemeanor offense.

Read more: The Tennessean