Judicial Panel Rules Against Tennessee “Going Armed” Law & Parks Gun Prohibition

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By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

A three-judge panel has ruled that Tennessee’s laws against the “intent to go armed” and carrying weapons in state parks are unconstitutional.

In Gibson County Chancery Court, the panel ruled in favor of plaintiffs Stephen L. Hughes, Duncan O’Mara, Elaine Kehel, Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation in finding the statutes violate Second Amendment and state Constitution rights to bear arms. Despite the ruling, the panel stopped short of ordering the state to quit enforcing the laws.  

The group filed suit against Gov. Bill Lee in February 2023, claiming their rights to carry weapons were violated by both the state’s provision against carrying a firearm “with the intent to go armed” and rules blocking weapons in state parks.

Tennessee maintains a gun permit system and the “intent to go armed” law even though the state’s permitless carry law allows eligible people to carry openly in unrestricted places, as long as they don’t have felony or domestic violence convictions or outstanding domestic violence protective orders. The legislature passed Lee’s permitless carry bill in 2021.

The Gun Owners Association, though, argued that one of its members who holds an enhanced carry permit is unable to “lawfully” carry a gun to defend his family while visiting Tennessee parks. Another of the plaintiffs who holds no carry permit said she fears prosecution if she takes a weapon to a playground, civic center or other area owned by local or state government.

Because state law says carrying a firearm “with the intent to go armed” is a criminal offense, the court said Gun Owners Association and Foundation members can be stopped and arrested “anywhere in the state.”

“This statute makes the entire state a ‘gun-free’ zone” for those members and supporters, the ruling says.

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office argued, in part, that the state can place limits on the “intent to go armed” because the Second Amendment doesn’t protect the right of people to carry a hand grenade.

Yet the judicial panel found the state’s arguments “unpersuasive” because they don’t defend or address “the constitutional infirmity at the heart of the statute – the criminalization of the constitutional right to bear arms.”

As a result, the panel found Tennessee’s law violates the Second Amendment and Article I of the Tennessee Constitution.

It took the same view on the state’s prohibition on guns in parks.

While courts have found that the government can prohibit carrying guns in “sensitive” places such as schools where children are required to attend class, the panel determined that parks don’t fall into that category because parents aren’t forced to take their children there.

Republican state Rep. Chris Todd of Madison County said he is “excited” about the ruling on the Second Amendment, which he believes is affirmed by numerous Supreme Court cases. Todd noted that the ruling says those statutes are “void” and “unenforceable” but that the panel acknowledged it doesn’t have the authority to place an injunction on them.

In light of that, Todd said he asked the attorney general to appeal the ruling, potentially to ask for clarity. Such a move could put Skrmetti’s office in the precarious position of arguing against its previous stance.

“It should be a higher court that agrees with this ruling, and I believe they will,” Todd said. 

Democrat Sen. London Lamar of Memphis criticized the court’s ruling by saying it will make Tennessee’s “public safety crisis” worse.

“This ruling puts Tennesseans at greater risk by tying the hands of law enforcement officers who encounter people who are armed and potentially dangerous. If police can no longer investigate someone for the intent to go armed, officers are left waiting until a crime has already been committed — a failed public safety policy that puts lives on the line,” said Lamar, chairman of the Senate Democrat Caucus.

The ruling was made by Chancellor Michael Mansfield of Trenton, Judge Wyatt Burk of Shelbyville and Judge Lisa Rice of Elizabethton.