By JONATHAN MATTISE, Related Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers have confirmed the governor’s appointment of a businessman to the State Board of Training regardless of lawsuits over his firm’s sale of ammunition on-line, together with the bullets utilized in a mass capturing at a Texas highschool.
The Republican-supermajority Common Meeting gave its closing approval to Jordan Mollenhour in a 71-14 Home vote Thursday. The Senate authorised the choose final week.
Republican Gov. Invoice Lee appointed Mollenhour to the 11-member board final November. GOP lawmakers praised his enterprise acumen and dedication to his neighborhood.
Mollenhour’s profile on the board’s web site says he and his enterprise accomplice, Dustin Gross, have began, purchased or invested in quite a few U.S. companies since founding the privately-owned funding agency Mollenhour Gross LLC in 2004. A few of these have relocated to Knoxville.
Political Cartoons
Democratic lawmakers have centered their opposition on his function in Fortunate Gunner, a Tennessee-based on-line ammo vendor owned by Mollenhour Gross LLC. Some additionally questioned how his resume certified him for the training function.
“There are 7 million folks on this state,” Democratic Senate Minority Jeff Yarbro stated throughout debate final week. “We ought to have the ability to discover one who isn’t concerned in ongoing litigation about potential duty in a faculty capturing.”
Republican Home Majority Chief William Lamberth defended Mollenhour on Thursday, saying that “if an individual sells sufficient ammunition, there can be an evil person who misuses it.”
A lawsuit in Texas accuses Fortunate Gunner of not verifying the age of Dimitrios Pagourtzis earlier than promoting him greater than 100 rounds of ammunition, a few of which had been used to kill 10 folks at Santa Fe Excessive Faculty, southeast of Houston, in 2018.
Pagourtzis was a 17-year-old junior on the time. Federal regulation prohibits minors from buying handgun ammunition, and likewise bars licensed gun corporations from promoting handgun or shotgun ammunition to minors.
Mollenhour is a defendant within the civil case. Final month, the Texas Supreme Court docket denied the corporate’s request to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Fortunate Gunner and its house owners had argued they had been immune from litigation underneath the federal Safety of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prohibits firearms and ammunition producers and sellers from being held liable when their merchandise are utilized in crimes.
Fortunate Gunner had confronted the same lawsuit after the 2012 Aurora movie show capturing in Colorado by which 12 folks had been killed. However a federal choose dismissed that lawsuit in 2015.
Mollenhour stated in an emailed assertion to The Tennessean final week that anti-gun teams used his nomination to “assault the 2nd modification as soon as once more.”
“I reached out to quite a few right this moment’s critics many weeks in the past and provided to reply any questions,” Mollenhour stated. “I didn’t get a single query which solely confirms that their antics right this moment don’t have anything to do with details. It was political theatre.”
Mollenhour, a marketing campaign donor to Lee, is “an especially profitable enterprise proprietor,” stated Rep. Jason Zachary, a Republican from Mollenhour’s metropolis of Knoxville. “He’s a philanthropist, very giving, very beneficiant to the Knoxville neighborhood” and statewide.
Copyright 2022 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials might not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.