Despite a landmark court victory for constitutional rights, Tennessee’s top officials are digging in to salvage anti-gun statutes rooted in post-Civil War oppression.
In a moment that should have signaled a decisive victory for Second Amendment advocates across Tennessee, a three-judge panel recently struck down two of the state’s most deeply entrenched restrictions on carrying firearms: the “intent to go armed” statute (Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1307(a)) and the “parks weapons ban” (§ 39-17-1311(a)).
The decision—rooted in both constitutional principle and historical reckoning—ruled these statutes “unconstitutional, void and without effect,” according to a report by Tennessee Firearms Association.
But rather than accept this clear mandate, the state’s leadership is doubling down, using the people’s own tax dollars in a campaign to preserve laws with origins in 19th-century Jim Crow measures.
The court’s ruling couldn’t be clearer: policies that criminalize the mere intent to carry arms, and blanket bans on carrying in parks, infringe on the fundamental rights Tennesseans have held since the state was founded.
As articulated by the 1871 Supreme Court of Tennessee in Andrews v. State, “The right to keep arms, necessarily involves the right to purchase them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use…and to keep them in repair. And clearly for this purpose, a man would have the right to carry them to and from his home, and no one could claim that the Legislature had the right to punish him for it, without violating this clause of the Constitution.”
Instead of safeguarding these freedoms, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Governor Bill Lee have chosen to challenge the ruling in court, seeking an emergency stay to keep these laws on the books.
Their justification is, if possible, more galling than the statutes themselves. In their latest defense, state lawyers argue, “But the decision below does not cure that neglect; it overcorrects. And in so doing it undermines other bedrock principles of Tennessee’s Constitution.” To gun owners and anyone who values foundational rights, this is cold comfort. The so-called “bedrock principles” allude to a 1796 constitutional clause that, in truth, guarantees that “the free men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence (sic).”
This legal wrangling isn’t about public safety. Even the Attorney General’s office has conceded that “there are unconstitutional applications of these statutes.” The truth is, the appeal is nothing more than a deliberate effort by those in power to deny the people of Tennessee their civil liberties, channeling public funds into the enforcement of unconstitutional laws rather than protecting the citizens they serve. For those who cherish American freedoms, especially the Second Amendment, the state’s actions are nothing short of an outright betrayal.
The bitter irony runs even deeper. The “intent to go armed” statute and the parks ban trace their lineage to post-Civil War measures—crafted by Democratic shadow governments in 1870. These laws were designed not just to undermine the rights of freed black Americans, but to keep entire classes of citizens disarmed and powerless.
As the court found, denying the right to bear arms to all citizens violates both constitutional language and the very directives the Supreme Court has laid down in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen. Specifically, if a gun regulation is not grounded in the nation’s historical tradition, it falls outside the “unqualified command” of the Second Amendment.
For years, Tennessee gun owners celebrated the passage of Constitutional Carry in 2021 as a resounding win. But those gains are now at risk, as political leaders recklessly pursue the preservation of unconstitutional laws. Every day the state spends public resources to maintain these laws, it sustains a legacy of civil rights violations.
Tennessee’s gun owners have every reason to be angry. At the end of the day, this is about more than gun laws. It’s about whether elected officials will honor the rights they swore to protect, or waste taxpayer money denying them.
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About José Niño
José Niño is a freelance writer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can contact him via Facebook and X/Twitter. Subscribe to his Substack newsletter by visiting “Jose Nino Unfiltered” on Substack.com.
