A Republican governor defending gun restrictions, elected to expand gun rights, is now betraying Tennessee gun owners.
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.
By News2A Team
