The Tennessee General Assembly has passed a bill to remove the criminal offense for carrying a non-lethal self-defense weapon like pepper spray on a public college campus.
The legislation has been titled the “Laken Riley Act of 2024” to honor its namesake, a nursing student at the Augusta University College of Nursing in Athens, Georgia, who was reportedly found dead in February near Lake Herrick with “visible injuries” after going for a run at the university’s intramural fields.
It was later found that her murderer was an illegal alien, who had been previously cited for theft and shoplifting but was released.
House Bill 1909 (HB1909) / Senate Bill 1868 (SB1868) “specifies that it is not a criminal offense for an adult person to carry or posses pepper spray, a taser, or another similar device for purposes of self-defense” while on property owned, operated or in use by a public college or university board of trustees, regents, or the administration directors of that public college or university.
