Category: A Victory!
The state’s toughened voting rights restoration policy requires people convicted of a felony to get their gun rights restored before they can become eligible to cast a ballot again, Tennessee’s elections office said Tuesday, confirming a mandate that officials had been debating internally.
Last summer, election officials interpreted a state Supreme Court ruling as requiring that all convicted felons applying for reinstated voting rights first get their full citizenship rights restored by a judge or show they were pardoned. Voting rights advocates have argued the legal interpretation was way off-base.
The change, instituted by elections officials in July, has since halted almost all voting rights restorations: More than 60 people were denied and just one person approved. In the nearly seven months before it was implemented, about 200 people were approved and 120 denied, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.
State Elections Coordinator Mark Goins revealed the gun rights decision Tuesday when asked about it by The Associated Press. Pointing to the court’s ruling, he reiterated that someone’s full citizenship rights must be restored before they can regain the right to vote, and added, “Under the Tennessee Constitution, the right to bear arms is a right of citizenship.”
As recently as last month, Tennessee election officials expressed uncertainty about restoring the vote to convicted felons who hadn’t regained their gun rights, saying in court depositions that they were holding up 12 such applications while consulting with the state attorney general’s office.
All Tennessee felony drug crimes and felonies involving violence specifically strip away someone’s gun rights, and high-level action such as a pardon by a governor is needed to restore their voting rights, according to the Campaign Legal Center.
The center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group, had already filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the state over its previous voting rights restoration process — before the new rules even took place — arguing that it amounted to the suppression of Black voters.
The suit argues that the state fails to make clear which officials can sign the necessary forms, provides no criteria for denial, and offers no avenue for appeal. Tennessee also requires that applicants are up to date on restitution, court costs and child support payments. The state also already bars voting rights restoration for certain categories of crimes, if they were committed within certain date ranges.
The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial last November. The policy change sparked by the high court’s decision spurred delays in court, making it unlikely that a trial will take place until after this year’s elections.
Despite the Tennessee legislature’s clear intent to create meaningful pathways for voting rights restoration, the Elections Division, with help from the Attorney General’s office, continues to twist the law into tortured knots to prevent the 475,000 Tennesseans, including over 20% of voting age Black Tennesseans, with past felony convictions from voting,” said Blair Bowie, director of Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote.
In its June decision, the high court ruled against a man who sought to register to vote in the state after receiving clemency for a crime committed decades ago in Virginia. The court ruled that he still had to go through the process of restoring his voting rights.
Though Tennessee elections officials have acknowledged that the court ruling applied only to the specific circumstances of that case, they have said the wording was close enough to the requirements under state law to necessitate the broad policy change.
Even as lawmakers returned to work at the Capitol early this month, it remained unclear whether supermajority Republicans would push to return to the old reinstatement system. Senate Speaker Randy McNally, for one, would prefer even more restrictions, showing how tough it is to sell the issue in Tennessee.
“Overall, I’m not in favor of felons voting. I think they’ve committed a serious crime, serious offense against the state,” McNally told the AP earlier this month. “And until they’re out of jail and either been pardoned or exonerated for what they did, then they forfeit that right.”
The only person approved for voting rights restoration under the new system didn’t hit any snags in court, at least. A judge restored his “full rights of citizenship” in September, and the state elections office restored his voting rights in November.
Criminal defense attorney John Pellegrin said he helped his client get a judge to reinstate his citizenship rights, but wasn’t involved in helping him submit voting restoration documents. The new stricter requirements were news to him.
“I didn’t really find out about the change until after we had already done it,” Pellegrin told the AP.
Lets see now. A snub nose pistol, a running away fugitive and about a 100 plus yards distance or so. Like some of my real hard nosed friends would say about it, “Yeah right!” and other adult language. But it was a good movie. Grumpy
Veterans are mostly proud of their service. And rightfully so, it’s no small thing to take the leap into the…
Veterans are mostly proud of their service. And rightfully so, it’s no small thing to take the leap into the military and all that it entails. But there are some veterans who, well, they’re like that one 50-year-old dude for whom high school was the highlight of his entire life and who references every situation back to “the good old days.” Like that, but, you know, with guns.
Because of this, we all know those service members and veterans who so prominently display photos of themselves on social media in uniform that all we can muster is a heavy eye roll or an “unfollow.” We get it, you served, thanks for the daily reminder. Not sure how Arbor Day is all about veterans, but somehow you made it out to be. You know, that kind of veteran. To some extent, we’re all guilty of this in some capacity. Because out of the millions of photos out there, they can all be boiled down to fall into about seven distinct categories of obnoxiousness.
1. The Basic Trainee
Imgur/tinychampion
This photo gets whipped out whenever a vet feels nostalgic, and it’s often accompanied by some remark such as, “It was harder at back in than it is for these soft kids today who get coddled!” It’s also a popular photo for those individuals for whom basic training was the only point in their career, because they didn’t really make it any further. The poster bears some risk in doing this because if they’re discovered they are apt to be covered in a deluge of ridicule.
2. The Mirror Selfie
Imgur/kcool951
This one is firmly the property of the younger generation these days. And with all mirror selfies, we have to say: Please police up your backgrounds before you post these things. We can clearly see the pile of Bud cans behind you and — worse — your messy pile of moto t-shirts. We get it, you love your job, but we don’t need a daily reminder of what you in uniform and your shower curtain look like. Give it a few years until you are managing troops like yourself and you’ll be singing a different tune.
3. The ‘Look How Responsible I Am’ One
U.S. Navy/Capt. Ronald L. Ravelo
Clad in dress uniform or serviceable camo, maybe even cracking a clean-cut smile, we can see that you’re a responsible service member — probably an officer. Your feed is full of positive stories about the military and your family. Frankly, boring, but we’re glad you’re around to provide order and point out uniform violations online.
4. The DGAF
This one is a bit more nuanced, because it can be divided into two categories: the DGAF (don’t give a fuck) military and the DGAF ETS/EAS’d. The DGAF military is usually a bunch of grubby troops out in the field with all manner of uniform violations, exercising their ability to cram a vast quantity of tobacco products into one shot. These photos often include some kind of animal or mascot. Apparently there are bonus points if you incorporate one of many stages of inebriation and the vagaries of uniform adjustment that come with it. The DGAF ETS/EAS’d veteran demonstrates how quickly one can lose one’s military fitness after leaving the service while still letting everyone know that you served. It takes skill, really.
5. The Shooter
National Guard
This variant shows the service member or veteran in some sort of a shooting pose: staring grimly down the barrel of a rifle, putting lead downrange with a machine gun, or dramatically going toe-to-toe with a 25-meter target with a 9mm handgun. Added bonus points if there’s a blank firing adapter attached so that we know that you’re a real hardcore killer. And for those of you who tried to pose to make it look like you’re engaged in a brutal firefight with Tommy Talib, it begs the question: Who do you expect us to believe it was that took the picture? Now go think about what you’ve done.
6. The Band of Brothers/Sisters Shot
Imgur/MrMacy
One of the most common, this one shows the veteran posed with a group of their buddies in front of their vehicle/track/combat outpost/helo/vessel/aircraft. Usually there’s an American flag somewhere in the picture. It’s often a phone photo of a hardcopy photo to get that vintage feel. There’s bound to be a mix of those who really want to take this seriously and are at parade rest or at responsible low ready, and those who really don’t care and who are throwing up all manner of obscene gestures.
7. The Operator
U.S. Army
And the most common of all: The guy standing in front of a desolate backdrop, or one of Saddam’s many palaces, holding a weapon. By the obligatory law of veteran social media, the weapon has to be held at a 45-degree angle, either at the low ready or in the air Rambo-style. This one lets everyone know that you’re a hardcore combat killer since you also seem to be wearing half of Ranger Joe’s tacticool product line. The zip ties are a nice touch, what with all the detainees that your convoy protection team will be processing. Again, bonus points for a blank firing adapter. Same for a belt of linked ammo draped artfully across your shoulders, because as we all know, ammunition always feeds better if it’s covered in dirt.
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Research suggests it’s largely because they’re anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market and beset by racial fears
Since the 2008 election of President Obama, the number of firearms manufactured in the U.S. has tripled, while imports have doubled. This doesn’t mean more households have guns than ever before—that percentage has stayed fairly steady for decades. Rather, more guns are being stockpiled by a small number of individuals. Three percent of the population now owns half of the country’s firearms, says a recent, definitive study from the Injury Control Research Center at Harvard University.
So, who is buying all these guns—and why?
The short, broad-brush answer to the first part of that question is this: men, who on average possess almost twice the number of guns female owners do. But not all men. Some groups of men are much more avid gun consumers than others. The American citizen most likely to own a gun is a white male—but not just any white guy. According to a growing number of scientific studies, the kind of man who stockpiles weapons or applies for a concealed-carry license meets a very specific profile.
These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. They tend to be less educated. For the most part, they don’t appear to be religious—and, suggests one study, faith seems to reduce their attachment to guns. In fact, stockpiling guns seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population that is struggling to find a new story—one in which they are once again the heroes.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HARD WORK?
When Northland College sociologist Angela Stroud studied applications for licenses to carry concealed firearms in Texas, which exploded after President Obama was elected, she found applicants were overwhelmingly dominated by white men. In interviews, they told her that they wanted to protect themselves and the people they love.
“When men became fathers or got married, they started to feel very vulnerable, like they couldn’t protect families,” she says. “For them, owning a weapon is part of what it means to be a good husband and a good father.” That meaning is “rooted in fear and vulnerability—very motivating emotions.”
But Stroud also discovered another motivation: racial anxiety. “A lot of people talked about how important Obama was to get a concealed-carry license: ‘He’s for free health care, he’s for welfare.’ They were asking, ‘Whatever happened to hard work?’” Obama’s presidency, they feared, would empower minorities to threaten their property and families.
The insight Stroud gained from her interviews is backed up by many, many studies. A 2013 paper by a team of United Kingdom researchers found that a one-point jump in the scale they used to measure racism increased the odds of owning a gun by 50 percent. A 2016 study from the University of Illinois at Chicago found that racial resentment among whites fueled opposition to gun control. This drives political affiliations: A 2017 study in the Social Studies Quarterly found that gun owners had become 50 percent more likely to vote Republican since 1972—and that gun culture had become strongly associated with explicit racism.
For many conservative men, the gun feels like a force for order in a chaotic world, suggests a study published in December of last year. In a series of three experiments, Steven Shepherd and Aaron C. Kay asked hundreds of liberals and conservatives to imagine holding a handgun—and found that conservatives felt less risk and greater personal control than liberal counterparts.
This wasn’t about familiarity with real-world guns—gun ownership and experience did not affect results. Instead, conservative attachment to guns was based entirely on ideology and emotions.
WHO WANTS TO BE A HERO?
That’s an insight echoed by another study published last year. Baylor University sociologists Paul Froese and F. Carson Mencken created a “gun empowerment scale” designed to measure how a nationally representative sample of almost 600 owners felt about their weapons. Their study found that people at the highest level of their scale—the ones who felt most emotionally and morally attached to their guns—were 78 percent white and 65 percent male.
“We found that white men who have experienced economic setbacks or worry about their economic futures are the group of owners most attached to their guns,” says Froese. “Those with high attachment felt that having a gun made them a better and more respected member of their communities.”
That wasn’t true for women and non-whites. In other words, they may have suffered setbacks—but women and people of color weren’t turning to guns to make themselves feel better. “This suggests that these owners have other sources of meaning and coping when facing hard times,” notes Froese—often, religion. Indeed, Froese and Mencken found that religious faith seemed to put the brakes on white men’s attachment to guns.
For these economically insecure, irreligious white men, “the gun is a ubiquitous symbol of power and independence, two things white males are worried about,” says Froese. “Guns, therefore, provide a way to regain their masculinity, which they perceive has been eroded by increasing economic impotency.”
Both Froese and Stroud found pervasive anti-government sentiments among their study participants. “This is interesting because these men tend to see themselves as devoted patriots, but make a distinction between the federal government and the ‘nation,’ says Froese. “On that point, I expect that many in this group see the ‘nation’ as being white.”
Investing guns with this kind of moral and emotional meaning has many consequences, the researchers say. “Put simply, owners who are more attached to their guns are most likely to believe that guns are a solution to our social ills,” says Froese. “For them, more ‘good’ people with guns would drastically reduce violence and increase civility. Again, it reflects a hero narrative, which many white men long to feel a part of.”
Stroud’s work echoes this conclusion. “They tell themselves all kinds of stories about criminals and criminal victimization,” she says. “But the story isn’t just about criminals. It’s about the good guy—and that’s how they see themselves: ‘I work hard, I take care of my family, and there are people who aren’t like that.’ When we tell stories about the Other, we’re really telling stories about ourselves.”
HOW TO SAVE A WHITE MAN’S LIFE
Unfortunately, the people most likely to be killed by the guns of white men aren’t the “bad guys,” presumably criminals or terrorists. It’s themselves—and their families.
White men aren’t just the Americans most likely to own guns; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they’re also the people most likely to put them in their own mouths and pull the trigger, especially when they’re in some kind of economic distress. A white man is three times more likely to shoot himself than a black man—while the chances that a white man will be killed by a black man are extremely slight. Most murders and shoot-outs don’t happen between strangers. They unfold within social networks, among people of the same race.
A gun in the home is far more likely to kill or wound the people who live there than is a burglar or serial killer. Most of the time, according to every single study that’s ever been done about interpersonal gun violence, the dead and wounded know the people who shot them. A gun in the home makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed by her husband. Every week in America, 136 children and teenagers are shot—and more often than not, it’s a sibling, friend, parent, or relative who holds the gun. For every homicide deemed justified by the police, guns are used in 78 suicides. As a new study published this month in JAMA Internal Medicine once again shows us, restrictive gun laws don’t prevent white men from defending themselves and their families. Instead, those laws stop them from shooting themselves and each other.
What are the solutions? That and many other studies suggest that restricting the flow of guns and ammunition would certainly save lives. But no law can address the absence of meaning and purpose that many white men appear to feel, which they might be able to gain through social connection to people who never expected to have the economic security and social power that white men once enjoyed.
“Ridicule of working-class white people is not helpful,” says Angela Stroud. “We need to push the ‘good guys’ to have a deeper connection to other people. We need to reimagine who we are in relation to each other.”
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