After many years working in finance, Doug Adair realized in 2013 there were many places you could go for food, but only two organizations that could help with diapers - one was closed and the other put you on a waiting list for 50 diapers to last four 4 months. Doug also was alarmed to learn that there are no federal, state or local assistance programs for diapers.
At the start of Nashville Diaper Connection (NashDiaper), Doug used his garage space, where he could store 1,100 diapers at a time. Currently NashDiaper has a warehouse that can store over 1 million diapers. In 2013, the first year, NashDiaper distributed 19,000 diapers. To date, they have helped diaper more than 160,000 babies and given away over 10 MILLION diapers.
NashDiaper collects diapers and distributes them through community partners. By being intermediaries, NashDiaper limits duplication of services, reduces administration expenses and works collaboratively to solve a basic human need at the community level. If struggling families need diapers, they often have other needs as well, which are best addressed through our partner agencies and their full continuum of care. NashDiaper is a growing community of support.
The November Hot Topic, “Common Sense Gun Legislation” was a sobering session on the impact of state law on the everyday lives of Tennesseans. Speaker Linda McFadyen-Ketchum, Co-Lead for Legislative Work for “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America/Tennessee” shared with attendees facts and data gathered by the grassroots movement fighting for public safety measures that respect the Second Amendment and protect people from gun violence. Paige Pfleger, a WPLN reporter, also joined the session to share some of her research from a two-year project underway and sponsored by ProPublica on domestic violence and the Tennessee gun dispossession law.
What we learned at the November 3 session is this: America’s civilian gun ownership far exceeds every other country in the world; there are more guns in US than people. And now, for the first time ever, guns are the leading cause of death for children and young people in the US and in Tennessee. What we also learned is that Tennessee is known as a “Guns Everywhere” state due to the repeal of safety measures and enactment of pro-gun ownership and unrestricted use laws. Gun owners are allowed to store loaded guns in car trunks and to carry them at bars, public parks, playgrounds, school campuses and on buses. In Tennessee, only a single federal-level law on mandatory, official reporting of firearm sales remains in place. Guns that change hands in private sales, transfers, loans, gifts or thefts leave no records with the State. Additionally, permits have all but disappeared as of 2021 with the Department of Safety administering just two levels of gun permits: Enhanced and Concealed Carry. These permits are required for a Tennessee gun owner to carry their gun in other states.
Tennessee also does not require training to carry concealed or to carry guns openly in many public places, although concealed carry is prohibited in judicial and federal buildings (including post offices), public schools and property owned, operated or in use by a school, public recreational buildings and civic centers along with a limited number of additional spaces. A number of restrictions to gun ownership do however exist. These restrictions are based on things such as felony record, stalking or hate crime convictions, substance addiction, mental illness or capacity, and active Orders of Protection.
Because guns are so easily carried everywhere, they are also easily stolen. Nashville police received reports of 1,278 guns stolen in Davidson County this year alone. Nearly 8,000 guns have been reported stolen in Nashville since Jan. 1, 2019.
This proliferation of guns in homes and on the streets can be seen in the explosion of gun violence. Between 2012 and 2021 there was a 52% increase in gun violence in Tennessee and we rank 12th in the nation for gun deaths. The statistics are especially bad for gun use in incidents of domestic violence. 71% of all TN intimate partner deaths are by gun. In 2020, 30 TN women were shot dead by an intimate partner; access to a gun makes it 5 times more likely that a woman will die at the hands of a domestic abuser.
To get guns out of the hands of abusers, Linda explained that Tennessee actually has a decent domestic violence gun dispossession law but it is poorly enforced. The law requires a judge who has issued an Order of Protection to inform the abuser to terminate physical possession of all guns by any legal means within 48 hours. The respondent may not possess guns as long as the Order of Protection is in effect.
The respondent must complete an Affidavit of Firearm Dispossession form and return it to the court. By signing and returning the affidavit, the abuser attests whether or not they possess guns and, if they do, what they did with their guns to comply with the Order.
The catch? The respondent may transfer possession of their guns to any third party who can legally possess firearms. The affidavit does not require that the court be notified of the identity of the third party. No other state in the US permits this non-disclosure of the third party. There are also no checks and balances for issuing and enforcement of the dispossession order. Data is not collected to gauge whether judges across the state are actually instructing respondents that they must give up their guns, nor does the state track respondents who fail to return the Affidavit of Firearm Dispossession form. Additionally, if the respondent does return the Affidavit and attests that they dispossessed their gun(s) to a third party, the court cannot verify this because the third party is not required to be named.
This unfortunate lack of oversight also results in the state not tracking the number of people who die in shootings with a gun that the shooter was not authorized to possess.
Perhaps even more importantly, on November 7, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the United States v. Rahimi, a challenge to the constitutionality of a federal ban on the possession of guns by individuals who are subject to orders of protection (restraining orders). The case involves an appeal by Zackey Rahimi, who was committed five shootings between December 2020 and January 2021. When police identified Rahimi as a suspect and obtained a warrant to search his home, they found a rifle and pistol. Rahimi had been the subject of a protective order which specifically barred him from having a gun, and he was indicted on additional charges that he had violated federal law which bars anyone who is the subject of a domestic-violence restraining order from possessing a gun.
The Defendant argued that the law violates the 2nd Amendment. Both a federal district court and a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit initially upheld the law, rejecting Rahimi’s challenge. But after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, the panel issued a new opinion vacating Rahimi’s conviction and deeming the statute unconstitutional. The federal government, the panel stressed, could not point to a historical tradition of similar restrictions, as Bruen requires.
Lawyers for the US government will argue that the law is constitutional, even if there is no exact historical match for it from the 18th century. The law fits into a broad historical tradition of disarming dangerous people, like Rahimi, who are not law-abiding, responsible citizens. Stay tuned for that SCOTUS decision and updates from the ProPublica study.
To learn more about gun legislation and public safety, visit:
- Consider adding the Domestic Violence Hotline to your contacts: 800-799-7233
- You may also choose to join Moms Demand Action by texting the word Ready to 64433.
