In the wake of the Covenant School shooting in 2023, Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, held a rally in Tennessee in support of the infamous “Tennessee Three” and to push gun control.
“We are here because [The Tennessee Three] and their colleagues, the Democratic caucus of the state legislature — and I’d ask you to stand as well, please, because they chose to show courage in the face of an extreme tragedy, which is that 11 days ago, six people, three educators and three babies, nine years old, were murdered senselessly due to gun violence,” she told students at Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville.
“They chose to lead and show courage to say that a democracy allows for places where the people’s voice will be heard and honored and respected,” she said. “And they understood the importance, these three, of standing to say that people will not be silenced; to say that a democracy hears the cries, hears the pleas, who hears the demands of its people who say that children should be able to live and be safe and go to school and not be in fear.”
She trashed the Republican General Assembly for moving to expel the three lawmakers who incited a riot at the State Capitol.
“You can’t walk around with your lapel pin and you’re not representing the values that we hold dear as Americans,” Harris said. “You can’t walk around and talk about protocol. Protocol and procedures were devised to require and allow and encourage debate and discussion and, yes, dissension. But these so-called leaders tried to shut it down instead. But we’re not having that. We’re not having that.”
After proposing background checks for gun buyers (which is already a requirement for most gun purchases), an “assault weapons ban,” and Red Flag laws, Harris called Republican members of the General Assembly cowards.
“You know, and, and the thing is is that it’s not like we’re trying to figure out how we should deal with a policy around smart gun safety laws. The ideas are there. The issue, which gets back to these three, is that we need leaders who have the courage to act at state houses and in Washington, D.C., in the United States Congress,” she said. “Have the courage to act instead of the cowardice to not allow debate and to not allow a discussion on the merits of what is at stake.”
“Courage,” she said. “You can’t call yourself a leader if you don’t have the courage to know what is right and act on it, regardless of the popularity of the moment.”
Harris made brief closing remarks imploring activists to keep fighting before she left the stage.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X/Twitter.Â
