Tennessee sponsor of guns-in-bars bill arrested for DUI with gun

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A Tennessee lawmaker who sponsored a controversial bill to allow handguns to be carried in bars was arrested Tuesday for driving under the influence and possessing a handgun while under the influence.

Police said that Tennessee state Rep. Curry Todd (R) was pulled over at around 11:15 p.m. in Nashville, according to WSMV-TV. Officers found a loaded Smith & Wesson .38 Special hidden between the driver’s seat and center console.

An affidavit charged that the lawmaker was “almost falling down at times” and “obviously very impaired and not in any condition to be carrying a loaded handgun.”

He is being held on $3,000 bond at the Nashville Metro Jail.

Todd’s 2009 bill that allowed residents to carry guns in bars if they weren’t drinking survived a veto by Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) but was eventually ruled unconstitutional by a judge. An updated version of the law was passed last year.

In 2010, Todd came under fire after he complained that Tennessee’s program to cover uninsured pregnant women would allow undocumented workers to “go out there like rats and multiply.”

The lawmaker later said that he should have said “anchor babies,” a term that many also find offensive.

Photo: Flickr/Al Herrmann

(H/T: Talking Points Memo)