It took House Republicans less than 10 minutes to pass four bills after Democrats walked off the floor protesting the silencing of Rep. Justin Jones for the second time in five months.

As Jones, D-Nashville, and his 23 colleagues walked off the floor, the sounds of boos and shouts of “fascists” rang from the gallery. But the minority party’s departure allowed the House GOP to swiftly pass legislation, like harsher juvenile crime penalties, briefly showing an alternative reality where the Republican caucus could move through its bills at a record pace.

As the party controlling 75 of 99 seats, united House Republicans can pass or block any legislation, like Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed emergency order of protection (“ERPO”). Their only constraint is time and stamina, which Democrats like Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, realized they could use to their advantage by slowing the legislative process down during debate and using a motivated crowd as a constant nuisance to members stuck on the floor for hours at a time.

These circumstances are why the House Republican changed its rules, spent the week hounding Senate Republicans to stay and largely ignored the proposals of Gov. Bill Lee and Covenant parents.

Lee’s special session, called in response to the Covenant School shooting, ended after eight days Tuesday, with lawmakers approving three bills and $110 million in spending, mainly for mental health and public safety grants.

The legislation list included sales tax breaks on gun safes and locks, a new report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on human trafficking and the codifying of an executive order on background checks.

None of the legislation addressed who can own or access guns, like the handgun and two rifles used by the Covenant shooter to fire 152 rounds that killed three adults and three children in Nashville on March 27.

Instead, House Republicans spent the five months between the shooting and special session unwilling to discuss Lee’s ERPO, using their time to devise a strategy to ensure they could silence dissenting Democrats and limit how much of the public lawmakers had to face.

While over in the Senate, most Republicans decided they didn’t want to participate in Lee’s special session, siding with the Tennessee Firearms Association’s position on ending the session quickly.

“We have a lot of great groups here,” Rep. Anthony Davis, D-Nashville, said while debating one of the passed bills. “They’re only asking us for a couple of things. An ERPO and safe storage with some actual teeth to the legislation. That’s the minimum they’ve asked for, and we haven’t done that.”

To Covenant School parents, the original intent of the special session seemed lost because, from the start, Republicans refused to sponsor an ERPO bill to remove guns from those deemed dangerous by a judge.

House Republicans gained some favor from parents for running legislation to upgrade schools’ active shooter plans and block certain children’s autopsies from being public records.

But still, there was no legislation explicitly surrounding guns.

“We have the potential for safer, brighter schools and communities for our children,” said Sarah Shoop Neumann, one of several Covenant School mothers who attended session each day. “But that takes boldness from our elected officials to speak out for what is right. They have to choose sanctity of life for all of our children over the loud voices of firearm associations.”

As the session ended, Neumann and other Covenant parents gathered in tears over the lack of action on guns, recalling the horrors their children experienced.

“They saw the bodies, kids massacred by high-capacity automatic rifles,” Neumann said. “Do you know what it does to a child’s body? Because the 9-year-olds know what it does to a child’s body.”