‘You have imprisoned our democracy’: inside Republicans’ domination of Tennessee

A year after the Covenant school shooting in Nashville – and a mass movement for gun control – Republicans have accelerated their attacks on democratic norms

The murder of six people at a church school in an affluent, largely white enclave of Tennessee’s largest city one year ago sparked a mass protest movement for gun control by Nashville parents. The Republican-dominated legislature met that movement with some spending on school police officers as a gesture to the outrage, a law shielding gun and ammunition manufacturers from liability as a gesture to Tennessee’s powerful gun lobby and the expulsion of the two Black lawmakers as a gesture of warning to people causing too much trouble.

Other antidemocratic displays over the last year would be just as outrageous, if people outside of Tennessee were still paying attention.