The city of Memphis still wants to push its referendum on the ballot in November. They’re even going to court over it. They’re fighting so hard over this that one might be forgiven for thinking this was actually a thing that would accomplish something. Instead, it’s an opinion poll with pretensions.

They’re using taxpayer money to put a question on a ballot that people will vote on and, at the end of the day, will accomplish nothing.

Yet Memphis says they want local gun control.

Gov. Bill Lee, however, has some words for them.

On Monday, Shelby County leaders officially sided with the Memphis City Council’s litigation over the election commission’s choice to omit a gun control referendum that was approved in July.

Shelby County commissioners voted 8-3-1 in support of the Memphis City Council’s lawsuit filed against the Shelby County Election Commission. The suit claims that the city has the right to call for a referendum election.

…

During a visit to the Bluff City on Monday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee declined to say whether he would sign any type of bill that would strip the money from Memphis.

The two-term governor did say he believes gun laws need to be consistent in every city and town across the state.

“The last thing we need is for the city to take on the rest of the state… to take on a fight with state government or with the laws that are consistent across the state,” said Lee. “We’re making way too much progress, and we need to keep moving.”

The city wants to be exempt from the state’s constitutional carry law because they have so much violence.

Of course, they had a ton of violent crime before constitutional carry went into effect, so it’s unlikely that had anything to do with anything. Plus, with the law in effect, they’ve seen a 17 percent decrease in homicides compared to this point in 2023 without being omitted from constitutional carry, but that’s not really relevant, now is it?

The state hasn’t been willing to cave to Memphis officials, nor should they.

However, I do think they’re taking the wrong approach to what’s happening. It’s one thing for Lee to talk about them wanting to take on the rest of the state, but he’s missing the fact that this referendum is just a referendum. It doesn’t actually do anything except take a tally of what the people who vote on that particular referendum think.

Memphis officials are pushing this so they don’t have to actually address their problems themselves. 

Violent crime is bad in Memphis, but Memphis city officials are using the old tried-and-true tactic of blaming other people for the problem rather than doing what they can to address it internally. In this case, they’re blaming the state’s Republican leadership, all so they can look like they’re doing something about the issue without doing anything about the issue.

Why work and put in effort when you can just blame someone else?

Lee and other state officials should spend at least some time pointing out how there are a ton of options still available to Memphis city officials that don’t require the rest of the state to bend the knee, but they’re not doing any of those because then it’s too much like work.

This referendum needs to be called out for what it is: A distraction and a deflection of blame that Memphis officials don’t want to fall on them, even though it’s deserved.