Bill Lee, the Republican Governor of Tennessee, has been defending gun control for years, but the state’s latest reply brief in a case challenging Tennessee’s recently struck down “intent to go armed” clause is particularly offensive, asking the court to set aside the “abstract categories of constitutionality.”
“The Tennessee Firearms Association applauded the unanimous decision of the special three-judge trial court finding two statutes unconstitutional. The trial court struck down Tennessee’s “intent to go armed” statute as well as the statute that prohibits individuals from carrying firearms in parks, forests, greenways, and other similar recreational areas. The Tennessee Firearms Association is deeply disappointed with the choice of Governor Lee and Attorney General Skrmetti to appeal that ruling and with numerous state legislators who either openly encouraged the appeal or refused to demand that the state honor the trial court’s decision. The effort to preserve these unconstitutional restrictions clearly burdens rights protected by the Second Amendment, which burdens thus infringe the rights of all Tennesseans and visitors to Tennessee,” said John Harris, Executive Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, in a statement to News2A.
We’ve written extensively about the history of this archaic law that, by default, makes it a crime to carry a loaded firearm (even though Tennessee is a “permitless carry” state), and provides only specific, affirmative defenses to prosecution. Historian and West Tennessee Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, C. Richard Archie, has documented that history for readers of this site.
Despite Governor Lee’s rhetoric positioning himself as a conservative, the state’s latest brief would be right at home among the attorneys general of New Jersey, New York, and California for its nonchalant treatment of civil liberties and constitutional rights.
On February 16, 2023, Gun Owners of America, Inc., and Gun Owners Foundation, along with three private individuals (who are TFA members), filed suit against the state in a complaint known as Hughes et al. v. Tennessee that challenged the above gun control law. In December of 2024, the state filed a brief defending the law. In August of 2025, a three-judge panel at the Chancery Court struck the law down, stating, “This statute makes the entire state a ‘gun-free’ zone…”
In September of 2025, Governor Lee and Attorney General Skrmetti appealed the decision and filed an emergency motion for stay pending appeal, which the appeals court granted, setting the status quo back to the full legality of the challenged law.
In its January 6 brief to the appeals court, the state employs three arguments that are fundamentally hostile towards Second Amendment rights. It questions whether the chancery court lacked jurisdiction in its decision, whether it erred by declaring the law facially unconstitutional, and whether it erred by granting declaratory relief to non-parties, that is all persons in the state.
The 72-page brief frames the argument with shocking arrogance, stating “Ultimately, this case is not about sorting all the hypothetical applications of Tennessee’s firearms laws into abstract categories of constitutionality.”
The state essentially argues that issues of constitutionality shouldn’t be judged by courts, but remedied by the legislature and that it should give “…the people of Tennessee, the opportunity to address the deficiencies of Tennessee’s firearms statutes while preserving important safety measures.”
The General Assembly has of course remained silent on this issue for over 150 years, even when presented with an opportunity to remove the offensive law by then-House Representative and now-Gubernatorial Candidate Monty Fritts, in 2024.
The state intentionally mischaracterizes the role of courts, whose fundamental job of providing checks and balances is both taught and understood at grade school, when it asserts “…the chancery court had no authority to universally declare two criminal statutes ‘void, and of no effect.'”
The state employs the same tired “public safety” argument that presumes that firearms are animate objects or that people’s character changes in crowded locations absent government oversight.
“Tennessee’s law enforcement and courts should hesitate to apply the Going Armed Statute to criminalize the carrying of a rifle on a country road for self-defense,” states the brief, while at the same time declaring that “After satisfying these minimal requirements, there are virtually no barriers to carrying handguns in public parks and many other sensitive places.”
In essence, with fees paid and permission slips received, the state bestows upon individuals the right to carry a firearm in locations it deems “sensitive places.” Mysteriously, the locations are no longer sensitive once the government’s arbitrary rules have been followed, which the state even confirms: “…requiring an easy-to-obtain, shall-issue permit to bring a gun to a park regularly frequented by children.”
The state’s briefing is specious in that it presents scenarios no plaintiff argued for:
“There should be no constitutional controversy over prohibiting the carry of grenades and bombs in the middle of a city….”
The state’s defense of “parks as sensitive places” is difficult to reconcile considering the many massive and extensive parks where an individual may find themselves alone for hours, ironically not dissimilar to its manufactured scenario of “carrying of a rifle on a country road for self-defense.”
The statute is also being challenged by Shaun Kranish, founder of 2a.org, a gun rights group that advocates for open carry of firearms, and whose members can often be seen peacefully carrying in downtown Nashville and Franklin. Mr. Kranish was arrested and charged under the contested statute for openly carrying a long gun in 2025 in a state park, and his case remains open.
This is an excellent, fact based rendition of the treatment of Second Amendment rights in Tennessee, which is to say that the state uses artful dodging to deny the simple core, God-given right to arms enumerated in our Bill of Rights.
They infringe them with impunity as they have the guns paid for by the People to enforce their “feelings” and do so with arrogance and disdain for the People who are in fact the rightful masters of government.