The Attorney General serves the state, not the people…what law does the state enforce that keeps criminals from using guns to commit crimes?
The three judge panel in Hughes et al. v. Lee et al. decided only two things: that Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-17-1307(a), (the intent to go armed statute which makes it a crime to carry a firearm or a club with the intent to go armed) and § 39-17-1311(a), (the parks statute makes it a crime to carry certain weapons, which the Attorney General defines to include all firearms, in a park for any reason) were unconstitutional, void and without effect.
It must be understood that the appeal of that ruling is a simple grasp by bullies to continue to exercise a theft of civil rights from the good people of Tennessee, while not advancing protection for them by the state. Further, it is a grasp to continue enforcing clearly unconstitutional laws that is being funded with your own tax dollars.
The Attorney General, Jonathan Skrmetti, and Governor, Bill Lee, along with several other state actors continue to petition the court system to keep in place a Jim Crow edict from 1870, initially put in place by Democrats from a shadow government at the end of the Civil War to disenfranchise the freed black slaves. The ruling of a duly constituted court comprised of one Chancellor and two Circuit Court judges found that the challenged scheme of denying Second Amendment rights to ALL citizens violated Bruen‘s instructions to governments on behalf of the People regarding the application of the Second Amendment.
Grasping at straws to maintain control of the populace through Anti-liberty, unconstitutional edicts it issued this egregious statement in its most recent ask of the Appellate Court seeking an Emergency Stay of the Hughes Order.
“But the decision below does not cure that neglect; it overcorrects. And in so doing it undermines other bedrock principles of Tennessee’s Constitution.”
The “bedrock principals” of Tennessee’s recognition of the right to arms is couched in the original 1796 constitution’s Second Amendment analogue,” That the free men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence (sic)” end of line.
Yet, the state, through its actions in stealing the inherent right of the People to arms, violated the oaths of the legislature and failed to obey constitutional instruction to that body (and state government in general) that declared “that everything in the bill of rights contained, and every other right not hereby delegated, is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate.” Article 10 § 4, 1796 Tennessee Constitution.
Two hundred and twenty nine (229) years later we face a tyrannical government that insist on continuing to wrap the chain of infringement about the necks of the People in their Emergency Motion for Stay:
“The Going Armed statute prohibits carrying a firearm “with the intent to go armed,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 39 17-1307(a), which the Tennessee Supreme Court has held means carrying with “offensive or defensive intent,” Kendall v. State, 101 S.W. 189, 189 (Tenn. 1907). Its definition of firearm encompasses “[a]ny weapon” that “expel[s] a projectile by the action of an explosive,” including bombs, grenades, rockets, and missiles. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-11-106(a)(10), -106(a)(13)(A).”
The Supreme Court of Tennessee in 1871 in its landmark ruling in Andrews v. State stated:
“The right to keep arms, necessarily involves the right to purchase them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use, and to purchase and provide ammunition suitable for such arms, 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…Bearing arms for the common defense may well be held to be a political right, or for the protection and maintenance of such rights, intended to be guaranteed; but the right to keep them, with all that is implied fairly as an incident to this right, is a private individual right, guaranteed to the citizen, not the soldier…[W]e would hold, that the rifle of all descriptions, the shot gun, the musket, and repeater, are such arms; and that under the Constitution the right to keep such arms, cannot be infringed or forbidden by the Legislature.”
Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 181 (1871)
Bruen list in its dicta:
“In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal.,366 U.S. 36, 50, n. 10 (1961).
New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, No. 20-843, 14 (U.S. Jun. 23, 2022)
The AG admits in his Emergency Motion for Stay in respect to 39-17-1307(a) and 39-171311 (a) to unconstitutional enforcement of these statutes:
“Defendants have acknowledged that there are unconstitutional applications of these statutes.”
An unintended consequence of this ask by government, is that enforcement of any Civil Rights violation would strip the offending agency of its self-proclaimed “Qualified Immunity” status, setting the stage for suits for Civil Rights violations.
What should happen?
The AG should simply go to the legislature and tell them to do their jobs as ordered by the Constitutions of the state and Union… protect the God given right to arms gifted us through sacrifice of blood and treasure by our Founders, and written in that blood for their posterity. Instead, he has “doubled down” on keeping that promise from the People for “Police Power” when “All power is inherent in the People and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness…”