Lemonade, cookies and guns for sale: Tennessee Democrat pushes for background checks

Right outside the legislative offices early Wednesday morning at the corner of Union and Polk avenues in downtown Nashville, Tennessee lawmaker was selling lemonade, cookies and a semi-automatic rifle.

"It's not often you see an AK-47 on the side of the street," said Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville.

The gun was not an AK-47, but a semi-automatic rifle that resembled the famous weapon. Stewart, a veteran who served in Iraq, set up his alternative lemonade stand to raise awareness about what he called legal loopholes in Tennessee that would allow private citizens to purchase firearms without a background check.

He sponsored a bill that failed in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee later Wednesday afternoon that would only allow "a sale or transfer of a firearm to be done through a federally licensed gun dealer."

Read more: http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2017/04/05/lemonade-cookies-and-guns-sale-tennessee-democrat-pushes-background-checks/100071012/