Court Strikes Down Tennessee’s 200-Year-Old “Intent to Go Armed” Statute

State-level victories are likely to be the path through which the Second Amendment endures and thrives, and gun rights groups just secured such a victory from the Chancery Court in which a three-judge panel issued a historic decision striking down Tennessee’s 200-year-old “intent to go armed” statute.

“This ruling is a direct rebuke to Governor Lee, Attorney General Skrmetti, and every politician who has stood in the way of Tennesseans’ fundamental rights,” said TFA Executive Director John Harris. “The Constitution could not be clearer. These laws were unconstitutional from day one, and the court’s decision makes that undeniable.”

The case of Hughes v. Lee, was brought in February of 2023 by three individuals who are members of Tennessee Firearms Association (and argued by John Harris, the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association) along with Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation, challenging the State’s unusual and long-entrenched law against carrying firearms in public.

The court issued its 44-page opinion on Friday, August 24, voiding the nearly 200-year-old law, along with the “Parks Statute,” both of which make it a crime to carry a firearm in a public place in violation of Article I, Section 26 of the Tennessee Constitution. The court issued a summary judgment against both laws: Going Armed Statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1307(a), 38 and the Parks Statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1311(a).

Oral arguments took place on April 30, 2025, at the Tennessee Supreme Court Building in Jackson, Tennessee. The Tennessee Firearms Association and other state-level groups have been aggressively fighting this prohibition for years. The bizarre statute is a holdover from a bygone era, stating, “A person commits an offense who carries, with the intent to go armed, a firearm or a club,” placing the presumption of a crime on any person who is armed, at any time in any place, including on their own property. Though the state provides affirmative defenses, the posture of the statute is in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, which presumes innocence until proven guilty.

The court summarizes the statute even more poignantly:

Since Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1307(a) provides that carrying any firearm “with the intent to go armed” is a criminal offense, GOA and GOF members and supporters in Tennessee can be stopped, charged, detained, and/or arrested for carrying with intent to go armed anywhere in the state. This statute makes the entire state a “gun-free” zone for GOA and GOF members and supporters who are, as a result of this statute, at risk of being stopped, detained, charged, or arrested by law enforcement, and for which they are provided merely a statutory defense under [the law].

The Court points out that the language of the statute presumes what is essentially a thought crime, which is impossible to prove:

The Going Armed Statute, by its use of the phrase “the intent to go armed,” far from criminalizing an intent to terrorize the people, instead criminalizes an intent to “carry ‘for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.'”

Also challenged is Tennessee’s “parks statute,” which makes it a crime for individuals to carry weapons prohibited by Tenn. Code (including long guns and handguns, unless one has a permit to carry) and identifies Tennessee’s parks (including its greenways and recreational areas) as “sensitive places.” The court likewise rejected this argument, which Bruen instructed against:

In answering this question, a court ought to be “mindful of the Supreme Court’s caution against construing too broadly the category of ‘sensitive places such as schools and government buildings,’ as it would ‘eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense.’

And the court points out how the defendants of this statute (including the office of the Governor, Bill Lee) completely ignore its unconstitutionality:

Defendants’ arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive because they make no defense of nor even address the Constitutional infirmity at the heart of the statute—the criminalization of the Constitutional right to bear arms.

As we’ve covered in the past, there have been multiple prongs of attack on this anti-gun law, including through legislative means. However, Governor Bill Lee (R) has not been a supporter of the measure, to the dismay of nearly all gun owners. “Efforts by the Tennessee Firearms Association to repeal these statutes in the Legislature have been rejected repeatedly by the Republican-controlled Tennessee Legislature. Those blockades were one of the motivations for bringing this court challenge,” stated the Tennessee Firearms Association on its website.

Shaun Kranish, President of 2A.org, a no-compromise gun rights organization that promotes open carry, was arrested for open carrying at a park in Nashville last year and charged under the “Parks Statute.” The “Parks Statute” only bans machine guns, explosive weapons, and some other specified weapons, but it has often been misapplied against gun owners. Shaun is still awaiting the dismissal of his case and his property to be returned after 9 months. The Tennessee-based 2A.org can often be seen in Nashville on Broadway, open carrying rifles to generate a positive public image of carry rights. They support the Constitutional Militia and help gun owners who need support for all types of legal matters, including harassment and arrest by police for violating gun laws.