Justin Jones was one of two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by a Republican supermajority in the Tennessee state House of Representatives Thursday for peacefully protesting gun violence in the chamber last week.
I was shocked to have the speaker of the House condemn mothers and children and grandmothers and parents and concerned citizens, clergy, lie on them and say that they were violent insurrectionists. And I think that he owes the people of Tennessee an apology, because at no point was there violence. At no point did we encourage violence.
That’s what the chant means, is that we have no peace, and that until we act, there will be no peace for the thousands of children who came here demanding that we act, who are afraid that if they’re in school, they will be gunned down, because you have passed laws to make it easier to get a gun than it is to get healthcare in this state. You’ve passed laws to make it easier to get a gun than it is to vote in this state.
We didn’t belittle nobody. What we said was that we cannot be beholden to gun lobbyists, to the NRA. We can’t be beholden to organizations that don’t want to see us make progress on gun violence. We can’t be beholden to folks who don’t want to see us help save our communities and protect them.
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