Top Republican lawmakers in Tennessee made an unprecedented threat to withhold roughly $75 million in state sales tax revenue from Memphis if the city moved forward with a plan to put three gun restrictions on the ballot in November. As it stands, there’s no sign that Memphis leaders are deterred, but if legislators follow through, Tennessee Lookout reported, it would likely force the city to sue the state.

The ballot questions at issue are hot-button topics in the gun rights world, and include asking voters about requiring permits to carry a handgun, implementing an extreme risk protection order ordinance, and banning the sale and carry of AR-15-style rifles in many situations. If approved, those measures would conflict with state law: Tennessee allows permitless carry, and this year passed a bill banning local governments from enforcing extreme risk protection orders. Most relevant, Tennessee has a preemption law that prohibits local governments from enacting gun regulations that are stricter than those passed by state legislatures. Tennessee’s secretary of state also said his office wouldn’t approve any Memphis ballot with the gun referendum questions.

But even if the questions made it to the ballot and voters approve them, Memphis City Council Member Jeff Warren told the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the changes wouldn’t be implemented without the state’s approval. (Warren compared it to the “trigger laws” some states had in place before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.) Whether the referendum is enforceable isn’t the point, City Council Member Chase Carlisle said during an early committee meeting on the measures. “This is an opportunity for citizens in Memphis to speak,” Carlisle said. “I think it’s an opportunity for the General Assembly, whether they choose to listen or not, to understand where we are as a municipality. And to give voice to the people.”

City Council Member JB Smiley concurred: “It’s anti-democratic,” Smiley told Tennessee Lookout on Monday, “if we don’t want to listen to the people.”

Update: Local elections officials decided to leave the questions off the ballot.

From The Trace

What to Know Today

The Trace’s Rita Oceguera appeared on WBEZ’s “Reset” to discuss Chicago’s inaccurate reputation as the gun violence capital of the country, her recent story on what locals hoped Democratic National Convention attendees would learn about their city, and how community members are working to solve this issue. Listen here → 

Gun rights groups are asking the Supreme Court to take up a case that would decide whether state restrictions on AR-15-style rifles are constitutional — meaning that, should the court add it to the upcoming term, justices could more definitively determine the limits, or lack thereof, of the Second Amendment. One of the entities behind the effort? Cooper & Kirk, a D.C. law firm connected to a secret multimillion-dollar operation to dismantle America’s gun laws. [The Wall Street Journal] 

A panel of the Eighth Circuit overturned Missouri’s “Second Amendment sanctuary” law, which penalized police in the state for enforcing certain federal gun restrictions, finding that it violated the Constitution’s supremacy clause. A lower court blocked the state from enforcing the law last year. [Missouri Independent/Associated Press] 

A federal judge threw out major felony charges against two former Louisville, Kentucky, police officers accused of preparing and approving a falsified search warrant that led to plainclothes officers shooting and killing Breonna Taylor in her home during a botched drug raid in 2020. U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson wrote that “there is no direct link between the warrantless entry” and Taylor being shot and killed by police, and ruled that the actions of Taylor’s boyfriend, who has said he fired a warning shot because he believed an intruder was breaking in, were instead the legal cause of her death. [Louisville Courier Journal/Associated Press] 

Faith leaders who work on anti-violence initiatives in North Minneapolis have called for more resources from the city and help from the community to prevent young people from being involved in or victimized by crime, following a shooting that wounded four children this weekend. As The Trace’s Selin Thomas reported earlier this year, child shootings are grimly common in North Minneapolis. [Sahan Journal] 

Far-right extremists have for years been fixated on disrupting America’s power grid — an attempt to sow chaos, researchers say, to pave the way for a violent overthrow of the government. On “Terrorgram,” a loose network of Telegram channels, users have offered one another tips on how to attack power facilities. A significant portion of the advice centers on firearms. [Bloomberg Businessweek] 

After a Seattle high school student, Amarr Murphy-Paine, was shot and killed in a campus parking lot before the summer break — and incidents of gun violence throughout the last year — the city is pouring nearly $15 million into new student safety initiatives. The public school district is hiring more counselors and school security guards, and placing violence interrupters into some schools. Not in the plan: reviving a controversial school resource officer program. [KUOW] 

Police in Anchorage, Alaska, have shot seven people since May — more than twice as many people as officers there shoot in a year. At least four of those shot were people of color, rattling residents of one of the most diverse cities in the country. Anchorage’s new mayor and police chief, both of whom took office in July, have announced measures intended to lower police violence. [Associated Press] 

Last week, a state appeals court upheld a California law barring people with felony convictions from owning or possessing guns or ammunition. Could the case be a blueprint for defending gun laws in other state courts post-Bruen? [San Francisco Chronicle]

Data Point

$50,000 — the fine imposed on local law enforcement agencies that “infringed” upon residents’ Second Amendment rights under Missouri’s recently overturned “Second Amendment sanctuary” law. [Missouri Independent]

Non Sequitur

An off-topic story for a change of pace. 

Designed by Nature: “A photographer takes the time to explore and see the quiet beauty all around him.” [The Boston Globe]

Sunny Sone
Sunny is in charge of our newsletters, leading the growth of existing products and dreaming up new ones. They previously worked as a copy editor at The Intercept and as digital editor for the Texas Observer, and co-published a web-only magazine under the Brick House media cooperative. Sunny has covered topics ranging from the Texas funeral industry to the life of visionary composer Pauline Oliveros. They hold a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.