NRA Scores Two Big Gun Rights Wins Within 24 Hours of Nashville Shooting

The National Rifle Association has scored two legislative wins for gun owners just a day after six people were killed in a mass shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.

The gun lobby organization celebrated the news that a hearing on a law in Colorado to ban semi-automatic firearms had been delayed, while a separate law in Nebraska enshrining the right to carry concealed handguns without a permit passed a legislature vote and was one away from being sent to the governor for his signature.

It comes in the wake of a shooting at the Covenant School in which three 9-year-olds and three adult members of staff were killed. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the suspect as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who had previously attended the school and had arrived that day with three guns including two assault weapons.

The NRA has since praised the two police officers who fatally shot Hale, and claimed that enhanced school security had acted as a "deterrent" after the Nashville police chief said the shooter had considered another target but had chosen not to attack it as it had "too much security."

Proponents of gun control often cite school shootings among emotive examples of the need for greater restrictions, while gun advocates have previously stressed the need for armed security in public institutions to counter the possibility of such attacks while maintaining the constitutional right to bear arms.

A Democrat-led effort to prohibit the ownership and proliferation of assault weapons in Colorado specifically cited their use in mass shootings—including several in the state itself—as a reason to outlaw them.

HB23-1230 described mass shootings as "an American epidemic that no other industrialized country experiences at remotely the same level" and declared the ban "necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety."

The bill had been scheduled to be heard by the state legislature's Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, before the scheduled session was canceled and the hearing postponed, according to a notice published by the NRA.

"Stand and fight!" the NRA wrote on Twitter. "Keep making your voice heard."

"We will keep standing up for the rights of ALL Coloradans if they try and bring it back!" the Colorado House Republicans tweeted. Speaking on the subject on the Colorado house floor, GOP state representative Richard Holtorf said: "Colorado gun owners are not second-class citizens and the second amendment is not a second-class right, and we will stand to defend it."

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the unicameral Nebraska state legislature voted to advance LB77, which as well as providing for the concealed carry of handguns, would deny local authorities including cities to require the registration of firearms. Governor Jim Pillen is a second amendment advocate and the NRA said he had already pledged to sign the bill.

In a statement on Tuesday, the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action said the bill "recognizes the fundamental right of law-abiding adults to carry firearms for self-defense without having to navigate burdensome government regulations."

"This is a huge step in Constitutional Carry becoming law in Nebraska!" it added. "It has never made it this far and there is only ONE more vote before it is sent to the Governor's desk."

While the bill has received support from Republican state legislators and gun rights groups, it has been criticized by local Democrat lawmakers and gun violence organizations.

Jane Raybould, a Democratic state senator, said that "to dismiss and dismantle local safeguards that keep our communities safer is what we're doing. It is completely illogical," according to the Nebraska Examiner.

"Scrapping our common sense permitting system is a step in the wrong direction," Jayden Speed, a high school senior and founder of the Nebraska chapter of Students Demand Action, a gun violence activism group, tweeted on Tuesday. "The proliferation of firearms into our communities only exacerbates the gun violence epidemic."

He cited a May 2022 study by Johns Hopkins University which found that among 10 U.S. states that had relaxed restrictions on carrying concealed firearms, the average rate of shootings involving a police officer had risen by 12.9 percent.

Newsweek reached out to the NRA for further comment via email on Wednesday.