Gary Humble
Gary Humble is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Tennessee Stands, an organization working to secure liberty and hold elected officials accountable to the Constitution through legislation, litigation, and education. Follow Gary @garyhumble and visit www.tennesseestands.org.
Tennessee’s Republican betrayal of their sworn oath to the Constitution.
The August 22, 2025 ruling in Hughes v. Lee should have been a moment of triumph for constitutional governance in Tennessee. A three-judge panel delivered a masterful defense of Second Amendment rights, striking down two antiquated statutes that had long criminalized the fundamental right to bear arms. Instead of celebrating this victory for constitutional liberty, Tennessee’s Republican establishment, led by Governor Bill Lee and Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, has chosen to appeal the ruling and fight against the very constitutional rights they claim to champion.
This betrayal cuts deep because it exposes the hollow nature of Republican campaign promises in Tennessee. These politicians built their careers on Second Amendment rhetoric, yet when handed a clear judicial vindication of gun rights, they immediately ran to the courts begging to preserve laws that treat law-abiding gun owners as presumptive criminals.
The Court Got It Right
The three-judge panel’s analysis was both legally sound and constitutionally necessary. As the court correctly identified, Tennessee’s “intent to go armed” statute (Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1307(a)) essentially criminalized “the entire right-to-bear-arms portion of the Second Amendment.” Under this Orwellian law, any Tennessean carrying a firearm with the intent to be prepared for self-defense (the very core of the Second Amendment right) could be arrested, detained, and prosecuted.
The court’s application of the Supreme Court’s Bruen standard was textbook constitutional analysis. When conduct falls within the scope of the Second Amendment, it is “presumed to be constitutionally protected” unless the government can demonstrate that the regulation fits within our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Tennessee failed this test miserably because, as the court noted, the state’s interpretation of “going armed” bore no resemblance to the historical tradition of prohibiting arms-bearing that “spreads ‘fear’ or ‘terror’ among the people.”
Instead, Tennessee had perverted this concept to criminalize ordinary self-defense, turning the constitutional right to bear arms into a criminal offense. The court understood what Tennessee Republicans apparently do not. Constitutional rights cannot be subjected to the whims of political convenience or bureaucratic inertia.
The Legislature's Shameful Abdication
What makes this judicial intervention particularly galling is that it should never have been necessary. The Tennessee Firearms Association and other Second Amendment organizations spent years pleading with Tennessee’s Republican supermajority to repeal these unconstitutional laws. Their efforts were not merely ignored – they were, as the court noted, “rejected repeatedly.”
This raises the fundamental question every Tennessee conservative must confront. Why do we have to drag our own Republican government kicking and screaming into compliance with the Constitution they swore to uphold?
Tennessee’s legislature is overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans who campaign on conservative principles, constitutional fidelity, and Second Amendment protection. Yet when faced with the opportunity to proactively protect the constitutional rights of their constituents, they chose inaction. They chose to preserve laws that treated gun owners as presumptive criminals rather than citizens exercising fundamental rights.
This legislative cowardice forced Tennessee gun owners into an adversarial relationship with their own government, compelling them to spend their own resources to vindicate rights that should have been protected by their elected representatives.
The State's Desperate and Dishonest Arguments
The motion for stay filed by Lee and Skrmetti reveals just how intellectually bankrupt their position has become. Their arguments are not merely wrong. They are insulting to the intelligence of Tennessee citizens.
Consider their hysteria about public safety. They claim that without these unconstitutional statutes, “there is no law in Tennessee against children bringing semi-automatic rifles to a pickup basketball game” or “a drunk wandering with his shotgun down Broadway in Nashville.” This is absolute hogwash.
Tennessee already has comprehensive laws addressing these scenarios. Public intoxication is illegal regardless of whether someone is carrying a firearm. Disturbing the peace, reckless endangerment, and numerous other statutes address dangerous behavior in public spaces. Schools have specific statutory protections. The idea that striking down the “intent to go armed” statute somehow eliminates all public safety laws is either willfully dishonest or demonstrates a shocking ignorance of Tennessee’s legal code.
These scare tactics are nothing more than a smokescreen for a government that, at its core, does not trust law-abiding citizens with their constitutional rights.
The Most Revealing Statement
But the most damning evidence of the state’s anti-Second Amendment mindset comes in this statement from their motion: “the dangers to public safety and the rule of law resulting from continued confusion far outweigh any prejudice.”
Read that again. The state of Tennessee, supposedly led by pro-Second Amendment Republicans, is arguing that recognizing constitutional gun rights poses “dangers to public safety.”
This single sentence exposes the fundamental fraud at the heart of Tennessee’s Republican establishment. They don’t see armed citizens as an asset to public safety or as people exercising fundamental rights. They see them as a threat. They view the Second Amendment itself as dangerous to public safety.
These are not the words of conservatives. These are the words of tyrants who fundamentally distrust the citizens they govern.
The state’s motion reveals its true priority, which is preserving government power over individual rights. They argue that the court’s ruling creates “maximum disruption to Tennessee’s statutory scheme” as if the statutory scheme itself isn’t the problem. They’re more concerned about bureaucratic convenience than constitutional compliance.
Their plea for appellate review so courts can determine “the metes and bounds of the judicial power” is particularly rich. The three-judge panel exercised exactly the kind of judicial restraint conservatives claim to support, applying constitutional text and historical understanding to strike down laws that exceeded government authority. Yet Tennessee Republicans want higher courts to reverse this constitutionally sound decision.
The Broader Conservative Failure
This case represents a microcosm of the broader failure of establishment Republicans to govern according to their campaign promises. Tennessee Republicans have enjoyed supermajorities for years. They could have repealed these unconstitutional statutes at any time. Instead, they chose to defend laws that criminalize constitutional rights.
When the Tennessee Firearms Association and Gun Owners of America were forced to file suit, Tennessee taxpayers found themselves funding both sides of a constitutional battle—paying for the state to defend unconstitutional laws while citizens spent their own money to vindicate rights that should have been protected legislatively.
The court has done what Tennessee Republicans failed to do, protect the constitutional rights of the people they serve. The three-judge panel’s declaration that these statutes are “unconstitutional, void, and of no effect” statewide represents a complete vindication of Second Amendment principles.
But this victory comes with a sobering lesson about the nature of political power in Tennessee. When push comes to shove, the Republican establishment chose government authority over individual liberty. They chose bureaucratic preservation over constitutional fidelity.
Tennessee gun owners have won this battle, but only because they were willing to fight their own government in court. The war for accountable, constitutionally-minded governance continues, and it’s clear that Tennessee Republicans cannot be trusted to fight it.
Governor Lee and Attorney General Skrmetti have shown their true colors. When faced with a choice between constitutional rights and government power, they chose power. Tennessee conservatives deserve better, and it’s time to demand it.
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble