This session of the Tennessee General Assembly will be remembered for the number of gun bills.

In the legislative push to shield the identity of gun owners or extend venues in which guns are permitted to be carried, the provisions of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution apparently overrode protections established in the First.

Election years bring out the best and the worst in legislation, legislators and political hubris; 2008 is no exception.

While a spirited debate frames an issue, so does the drive to raise campaign funds with wedge issues, regardless of whether constitutionally protected rights are infringed in the process.

In the zeal to attach a political label to the Democratic speaker of the state House of Representatives or to fire out a hard-edged call for political dollars, Republican operatives failed to explain fully the ramifications of their legislative approach or attack.

Two votes orchestrated by House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, D-Covington, blocked an attempt to allow guns to be taken into restaurants where alcoholic beverages are served. The second bill tried to shut down public access to state records of those who receive a permit to carry a gun. The teeth of the bill would have made publication of permit holder data a felony, with a six-year prison sentence.

Tennessee is not the only state in this debate. The latest edition of American Editor, the magazine of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, leads with the gun legislation debate. The arguments used here by pro-gun advocates mirror almost word for word positions taken in other states.

Overcrowding in state prisons led to efforts to put violent criminals on parole. How practical is it, then, to encourage placing in those same overcrowded prisons those who publish gun permit holder information?

Bill Hobbs, spokesman for the Tennessee Republican Party, “assailed Naifeh’s anti-gun gang,” and stated that the Democrats stopped efforts to allow gun permit holders to “carry their gun into restaurants for their personal defense.”

Patrons at the salad bar have been known to be aggressive. But restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages are the new venue targeted by this legislation.

Another semi-important fact is mysteriously missing from the Republican news release. The proposed sixyear felony prison term for publishing the names of gun permit holders gets tangled in the words of the protected speech covered by the First Amendment. For those who view the world through a partisan spectrum, trampling on the First Amendment is permissible.

The Republicans, according to their news release, want to “ensure rights in Tennessee.” The appeal also should embrace the provisions of the First Amendment that encourage open access and free-flowing information.