Tennessee State Senator Becky Massey (R-Knoxville) filed a bill this week that would reimburse people up to $30.00 for taking a first-time handgun safety course. The reimbursements would be funded from fees collected by the state’s handgun carry permit application and processing costs.
The bill (SB0021), according to its summary on the General Assembly’s website, “authorizes the department of safety to utilize the $100 enhanced handgun carry permit application and processing fee to pay reimbursements to an approved handgun safety school of up to $30.00 for each person who, for the first time, completes a handgun safety course on or after October 1, 2023.”
According to the bill, reimbursements will be issued to handgun safety schools that are approved to provide handgun safety courses for the public. The bill also authorizes the department of safety to reimburse a handgun safety school regardless of whether the person pursuing the course has applied for an enhanced handgun carry permit.
“We just wanted to make sure that money wasn’t a deterrent if someone was going to be using guns in our state,” Massey said in a statement, according to WKRN News 2. “We wanted to give them the opportunity to take the gun safety courses.”
The bill would require the department of safety to cooperate with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and other state agencies to “annually provide information to licensed federal firearms dealers in Tennessee on handgun safety training courses provided to residents of this state and approved by the department.”
The bill would also require the department of safety to “report to the chair of the judiciary committee of the senate and the chair of the criminal justice committee of the house of representatives the number of handgun safety courses provided to persons during the preceding year pursuant to this bill.”
Massey’s bill would amend Title 4 and Title 39 of the Tennessee Code (TCA).
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
