Tennessee Deserves Better: Leaders Who Defend The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, Not Bureaucrats Who Litigate Against It.

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Submitted by Daniel Turklay [Tennessee criminal defense attorney and Second Amendment advocate] –

In a recent blog post, retired attorney Mark Pulliam came to the defense of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s choice to vigorously defend the state’s unconstitutional “intent to go armed” firearms statute. Pulliam claims this is merely routine duty for the AG. With all due respect to a fellow conservative voice, Mr. Pulliam is profoundly wrong.

On August 22, a three-judge panel in Gibson County Chancery Court delivered a landmark ruling: Tennessee’s “intent to go armed” statute violates both the Second Amendment and the state constitution. That this patently unconstitutional law even reached the courts is an embarrassment for a state as staunchly pro-Second Amendment as Tennessee, where grassroots support for gun rights stands stronger than Lookout Mountain.

At its core, Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1307(a)(1) declares: “A person commits an offense who carries, with the intent to go armed, a firearm or a club.” That’s the whole section of the statute—no qualifiers, no caveats. It bluntly criminalizes the very act of bearing arms, in direct defiance of our God-given right enshrined in both the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions. Anyone with basic reading comprehension and a shred of intellectual honesty can see it’s facially unconstitutional.

Sure, other sections of the code—like § 39-17-1307(g) and our permitless carry provisions—offer exceptions that might shield most law-abiding citizens from prosecution. But those don’t fix the fundamental flaw: Bearing arms in Tennessee starts as a crime. This gives police probable cause to stop, detain, question, or even arrest anyone spotted with a firearm, shifting the burden onto the citizen to prove an exception applies. In a vacuum, it’s a crime. The state no longer bears the full proof of guilt; you do. That’s not liberty—it’s a presumption of criminality.

One would be hard-pressed to craft a more blatantly unconstitutional gun law, even if trying. Yet Tennessee’s Republican supermajority hailed their “constitutional carry” reform just a few years back as a victory. This statute exposes that as hollow rhetoric.

The lawsuit challenging it landed in Gibson County for good reason. It forced AG Skrmetti to decide: Would he deploy the full might of his office to prop up this relic, or let it wither and compel the legislature to craft something truly constitutional? For a self-proclaimed Second Amendment champion, declining to defend it should have been a no-brainer—starve the bad law and send lawmakers back to the drawing board.

Skrmetti chose to fight. He didn’t have to; he chose to. The distinction is critical. On September 9, 2025, his office declined to defend a statute criminalizing local officials for supporting sanctuary city policies, aligning with the ACLU in recognizing its constitutional flaws. T.C.A. § 8-6-109(b)(9) explicitly grants the AG discretion to forgo defending laws he deems unconstitutional. It’s crystal clear: If Skrmetti believed this gun statute violated the Second Amendment, he had no obligation to defend it. Mark Pulliam argues the AG shouldn’t “foil the will of the legislature” by picking and choosing laws to defend, conveniently ignoring that the legislature itself wrote T.C.A. § 8-6-109(b)(9) to grant exactly that authority. Skrmetti’s selective defense—passing on sanctuary city laws but championing this gun statute—reveals he knows his discretion and wields it deliberately.

Granting even initial defense as an honest error, his appeal to overturn the Gibson ruling in appellate courts crosses into dereliction. This wasn’t routine; it was a betrayal of his oath to uphold the Constitution, not undermine it.

Even some on our side, like State Rep. Chris Todd, urged the appeal—not out of disagreement, but to “strengthen” the precedent if affirmed. The theory? Skrmetti secretly agrees that the law is unconstitutional but appeals for show. Nonsense. This ignores that such gamesmanship would be unethical: Our adversarial system demands good-faith advocacy, not sandbagging for optics. (Attorneys needn’t love their client’s case—it just can’t be frivolous—but tanking it deliberately? Never.) I doubt Skrmetti’s playing this charade; he plainly wants the ruling reversed. Rep. Todd means well, but this path erodes justice’s foundations. 

No appeal was needed. The Gibson smackdown should have shamed the legislature into swift action: Repeal the statute, restore the state’s burden of proof, and decriminalize bearing arms outright. A clean fix would moot the courts. Instead, Skrmetti’s appeal drags this into endless litigation, bleeding through next year’s session (or longer) while we pretend the system must “run its course.”

Let me be unequivocal: The legislature must not sit idle. Dust off the statute. Read the ruling. Draft a replacement now to kill this farce. We know it’s unconstitutional; even if appellate judges somehow revive it on a technicality, amendment is non-negotiable. Skrmetti dodged his duty to let it die—don’t you compound the error by shirking yours.

Doubters on Skrmetti’s stance? His botched “emergency” stay request—to keep enforcing the law pending appeal—seals it. Nothing compelled that; it was pure overreach. 

Skrmetti’s wrong here, full stop. No true constitutional conservative can defend his office’s crusade. And talk about timing: Just days ago, Florida AG James Uthmeier did exactly what Skrmetti wouldn’t—refuse to defend an unconstitutional open-carry ban, directing law enforcement to stand down after a court struck it. Uthmeier sent a legal guidance memo to prosecutors and law-enforcement agencies, stating that the open-carry ban in Florida was unconstitutional. We didn’t need Skrmetti authoring memos if he didn’t want to. Silence would have sufficed. 

Don’t let his amicus join in challenging Massachusetts’ out-of-state permitting scheme fool you. Sure, he’s right to call out deep blue Massachusetts’  overreach denying Tennesseans reciprocity. But that’s reciprocity and equal protection, not core Second Amendment vindication. It would have been the same fundamental dispute if Massachusetts had passed a law to not honor a Tennessee license to drive. That is worlds apart from admitting Tennesseans aren’t criminals for simply carrying with intent to defend themselves. Don’t conflate the two just because the underlying issue were firearms permits.

Tennessee deserves better: Leaders who defend the right to keep and bear arms, not bureaucrats who litigate against it. The Gibson ruling is a win for freedom—now make it permanent.