Tennessee Republicans once flipped the state red—but today many act more like rebranded Clinton Democrats than MAGA conservatives. With 2A rights under attack, Tennesseans must ask: How red is Tennessee, really?
By Kelly M. Jackson | TruthWire News
On September 2, 2025, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, joined by Governor Bill Lee, filed an appeal against a three-judge panel’s unanimous decision striking down two of the state’s most restrictive gun control statutes: the “intent to go armed” law and the statute banning firearms in parks and recreational spaces. For many Tennesseans, this ruling was not only a long-awaited vindication of their rights, but a recognition that the state had been enforcing laws that clearly violated both the Tennessee and United States Constitutions. That victory now hangs in the balance as Republican leadership seeks to reverse it.
The contradiction is glaring. Tennessee has been one of Donald J. Trump’s strongest states in every presidential contest. He won here with 61.1 percent of the vote in 2016, 60.7 percent in 2020, and an even higher 63.5 percent in 2024. With margins like these, Tennessee should be the last place in the nation where Republicans in power move to defend Jim Crow–era restrictions on the right to bear arms. Yet that is exactly what is happening. These statutes, first imposed in the 1820s—barely five years after the Tennessee Constitution was ratified—were written in the spirit of control, not liberty. They were designed to weaken citizens’ ability to defend themselves, and for generations have stood as a relic of a government more concerned with power than freedom.
