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House rejects bill requiring psychotropic‑drug testing in certain mass shootings
Summary
Chairlady Littleton’s SB 20‑88, which would have required testing of decedents in some mass shootings for psychotropic drugs and forwarding results to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, faced questions over scientific basis and causation and failed to meet the constitutional majority on the floor.
Chairlady Littleton described SB 20‑88 as a measure to expand the definition for certain mass shootings and to require testing of decedents for "any drugs including therapeutic levels of psychotropic drugs," with results sent to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Representative Jones questioned the premise and asked if the bill intended to establish causation between psychotropic medications and shootings, calling the measure "rooted in faulty logic" and poor public policy if used as a pretense to address mass shootings. The sponsor said the intent was "to see if those are if psychotropic drugs are in their system" and that testing might reveal whether medications were prescribed correctly or at inappropriate strength.
Representative Rudd voiced support and stated an assertion that many U.S. mass shooters known to him had psychiatric treatment or prescriptions; Representative Jones and others pushed back on using testing as a policy response. The clerk recorded a tally (76 yeas, 21 nays on the record) and the Speaker announced the bill "did not receive a constitutional majority" and therefore failed to pass on this day.
