On an October Monday in 2024, 34-year-old Alyssa Lokits was using a greenway in Antioch, Tennessee when she was shot and killed. One witness reports that he heard a woman crying out for help as he told his story to a new station he stated that “she said, ‘Help, I’m being raped, I’m being raped,’ and then the shots were instantaneous.”
News reports do not indicate if Ms. Lokits had any weapon with her at the time of her alleged rape and murder. That may have been her choice or it may have been the requirement of a law preserved and exacerbated by Tennessee’s Republican controlled Legislature.
Tennessee law prohibits the possession of weapons in public parks which likely includes greenways such as the one where Ms. Lokits was victimized by rape and murder. Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1311. The statute specifically states that it is an offense “to possess or carry, whether openly or concealed, with the intent to go armed, any weapon prohibited by § 39-17-1302(a).” Traditional firearms like handguns, rifle and shotguns are not listed in Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1302(a). Nevertheless, the Tennessee Attorney General has interpreted the statute to, in that office’s opinion, include a prohibition on firearms such as handguns. See, Tennessee Attorney General Opinion 18-04.
Many citizens have been indoctrinated to believe that they should not and that they cannot have a firearm for self-defense in public parks, forests, campgrounds and/or greenways. Tennessee Firearms Association has made many efforts to change this law, but the Legislature has refused (particularly under Republican super-majority control) to do so.
TFA was successful in 2009 to get this law amended to allow those individuals who had a Tennessee handgun permit to be able to possess both the handgun and their permit in some, but not all of the prohibited places. See, 2009 Tennessee Laws Pub. Ch. 428 (H.B. 716) as amending Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1311(b)(1)(H). However, the Legislature put a “felony trap” into even that exception when it added a qualification that if the park/greenway is “in use by any board of education, school, college or university board of trustees, regents, or directors for the administration of any public or private educational institution for the purpose of conducting an athletic event or other school-related activity on an athletic field, permanent or temporary, including but not limited to, a football or soccer field, tennis court, basketball court, track, running trail, Frisbee field, or similar multi-use field” and one or more students are physically present.
But that exception only applies to Tennesseans with handgun permits.
In 2022, Governor Bill Lee announced that at his request the Tennessee Legislature had enacted a law that the Governor and many legislators have mischaracterized as “constitutional carry.” Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1307(g). That Legislation was sponsored in the Senate by Republican Jack Johnson and in the House by Representative William Lamberth. Of course, it is not constitutional carry which is a statutory scheme where carrying a handgun or other firearm for a lawful purpose is not a crime. In Tennessee, anytime someone carries any firearm “with the intent to go armed”, they commit a crime. Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1307(a). The law that some have falsely and deceptively claimed to be constitutional carry is nothing more than a defense to a criminal charge of carrying a firearm with the intent to go armed and the burden is on the individual to demonstrate all the elements of that defense if they are stopped by an officer, or arrested, or prosecuted for such crime.
The rape and murder of Ms. Lokits on a greenway raises the question of could she have legally been armed with a firearm if she did not have a Tennessee handgun permit. The answer is no. Although that issue was known to exist and even raised in 2022 when Senator Johnson and Rep. Lamberth were sponsoring the Governor’s mislabeled “constitutional carry” legislation, neither of the sponsors included in the legislation or in any amendment to what is nothing more than an affirmative defense to the “permitless carry” of a firearm with the intent to go armed any provision that would allow those individuals who elect to rely on that law to engage in “permitless carry” to be able to do so in any park, greenway, forest, or other area that is made a “gun free” zone by state law.
This was not a mere oversight. This was an intentional choice by the Governor and the bill’s sponsors (Sen. Johnson and Rep. Lamberth) to make it a crime for those who thought that they could carry a handgun without a permit to do so in a public park or greenway. The question many should be asking after so many assaults and murders of citizens who chose merely to use the State’s public resources is why did the Governor and these Republican Legislative sponsors knowingly disarm those without handgun permits and put them at risk of the predators, human and wildlife, in these areas?
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