Tennessee state troopers were called to the state Capitol in Nashville on Thursday to clear out the entire audience – among them parents of students at the nearby Covenant School – from a hearing of the state House’s K-12 Subcommittee as they considered and then advanced a bill allowing any member of the military or law enforcement, be they active or retired, or holders of an enhanced gun permit, to carry a pistol on school campuses and buses, the Tennesseean reports.

“This is an attack on our First Amendment rights,” said Nashville woman Allison Polidor through tears after she was forcibly dragged out of the room. “I’m here for my kids, everybody’s kids. The people are in there making oppressive laws, or lack of laws, and we’re here for our kids… When we’ve come to point where you can’t hold up a sign, that’s not okay. That’s not democracy.”

Governor Billy Lee had called for a special session of the state legislature to pass laws restricting the ability of mentally ill people to purchase guns after the late March massacre at the Covenant school claimed the lives of three students and three employees, instead they pass this stupid bullshit bill. For off-duty cops, okay. It’s probably unnecessary but it’s harmless to codify allowing them to carry at schools. Not knowing more about the “enhanced pistol permits,” we can’t make a call on it though likely the same. Active military however is just fucking stupid considering psychopaths like Nidal Hassan, Duke Webb, Jack Teixeira, and God knows how many others we could name here.