According to Firearm Chronicles
As constitutional carry bills seem bound and determined to stall out in so many other places, Tennessee is a little different. There, the governor has thrown his full support for the measure, which is bound to help it move forward.
Even so, constitutional carry still has to pass the legislature. The legislative path is one with a lot of potential hurdles that can scuttle even gubernatorially-backed bills easily enough.
The constitutional carry bill, however, just cleared one of them.
A Tennessee subcommittee has advanced legislation that would permit individuals to conceal or open carry a handgun without a permit, but gun-rights advocates say the bill doesn’t go far enough and gun-control advocates say it goes too far.
The legislation, House Bill 2817, would remove all criminal penalties for a person carrying a firearm without a permit as long as that person otherwise would have qualified for a permit. A person who would have had his permit revoked would not be allowed to carry. It still would require a person to obtain a permit to carry a firearm in a city park.
Violations of some gun laws also would see stricter penalties under this legislation, including increasing the mandatory minimum for firearm theft from 30 days to 180 days. “It increases our liberties here in Tennessee, and, at the same time, it is tough on those criminals out there that would abuse the privilege and the right to carry a firearm,” the bill’s primary sponsor, House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, told the House Constitutional Protections & Sentencing Subcommittee on Tuesday.