National media’s attention focused on Tennessee about a week ago when Governor Bill Lee signed into law a bill potentially stripping protesters of their ability to vote. At least that was the attention-grabbing narrative during an election season rife with incessant screeching about voter suppression. The context of SB 8005 adds no shine to the law and blunts that narrative’s credibility.

As interest and energy waned in Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” talk of establishing a similar community in Nashville started briefly on social media. Governor Lee wasn’t keen on a similar “summer of love” in Music City, warning protesters Nashville would never allow a Volunteer State version of CHAZ.

Undeterred protesters have camped outside the state capitol for almost two months now. The group claims they’ll leave once they speak with the Governor on a number of trendy activist topics like “defunding police.” Legislators, in a rare bipartisan display, convened a special session near the beginning of August. It took them five days to draft, pass, and sign into law SB 8005.

Groups take issue with a provision in the eleven page bill reclassifying T.C.A. § 39-14-414 from a Class A Misdemeanor to a Class E Felony. The original law, titled the “Equal Access to Public Property Act of 2012,” was drafted in a similar session as a response to Occupy Nashville protests. Felony convictions bar people from voting in Tennessee, so it takes little thought to make the logical jump that this is an effort to revoke the voting privileges of those outside the capitol.

If someone compares the new provisions with the old, all the outrage seems a touch misplaced. The new law substantially narrows the elements defining unlawfully “camping on property owned by the state” far more than its 2012 version, and it isn’t technically an offense if someone leaves the area for 24 hours after getting a warning from “an official responsible for the protection of the property in question.”

Using an example pulled from the concerns of civil liberties groups like the ACLU, if a cop woke a homeless man dozing on capitol grounds and told him to scram, the guy wouldn’t be charged under this law if he rested elsewhere.

The rest of the law strengthens penalties for crimes the average citizen wouldn’t mind being harsher: assaulting a first responder, vandalism, rioting and so on. Most people seeing violent riots across the country would applaud measures aimed at deterring such behavior.

None of this detracts from the fact this is a terrible law ostensibly passed as a knee-jerk reaction to fears of violence yet to occur.

Deterrence measures don’t guarantee prevention. Felony convictions carry numerous negative repercussions invisible to those without knowledge of our justice system. Provisions mandating restitution for property damage are nice in theory but carry little teeth if the guilty are insolvent. Mandatory jail holds on arrest and sentences on conviction rob prosecutors of discretion and tie jurists’ hands.

Countless photos and video of cities burning and destroyed businesses could certainly stoke fear in anyone. Legislators should be mindful history’s shown time after time laws passed in fear are almost always bad, leading to bad outcomes no one expects. This attempt to mitigate the fears of a group largely consisting of old white men is no different.

A simpler, less restrictive alternative would’ve been for the Governor to take the protesters’ requested meeting. Tennessee Black Caucus legislators apparently offered to serve as intermediaries, and Governor Lee could certainly take the meeting securely. At bare minimum, this is 2020. Surely protesters and the Governor’s office have access to Skype or FaceTime.

For the record, Lee refuses to meet with the camped protesters, saying he’ll only “meet with those folks that are willing to work together to move forward.”

“Moving forward” in any venture requires collaboration and cooperation with all involved parties. This won’t occur if someone paints their alleged adversary into a box and treats them accordingly.

All of this attention could’ve been avoided. Time could’ve been saved. Fewer people would suffer in a system disproportionately stacked against those accused of crimes.

Tennessee’s lawmakers could’ve seen the group outside the capitol as fellow citizens literally petitioning their government for redress of their grievances. They chose to view them as violent instigators a hair’s breadth shy of burning Nashville to the ground. And someone unexpected will likely suffer for their five day punitive lawmaking session.

Sometimes, the best course of action is listening to the voices you find the most uncomfortable, no matter how negatively one views them or how much their words make you want to flip a table. That carries no criminal charges or penalty. Anyway, it didn’t at the time of writing.