On September 26, 2025, the Plaintiffs/Appellees in Hughes, et al., v. Bill Lee, et al. filed a lengthy response in opposition to a request by Governor Bill Lee and Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti in which they asked the Tennessee Court of Appeals to “stay” the three-judge panel’s ruling striking down two of Tennessee’s gun control statutes as unconstitutional. In sum, the Plaintiffs’ filed a blistering response to the Lee-Skrmetti second attempt to stay a landmark court ruling that struck down two of Tennessee’s most oppressive gun control statutes. The response was clear – We Will Not Be Governed by Unconstitutional Laws.

Essentially, Lee-Skrmetti were really asking the Court of Appeals to ‘please allow the State of Tennessee to continue to enforce these unconstitutional statutes against anyone in Tennessee.’ Shockingly, Lee and Skrmetti stated in their stay request to the three-judge panel that “Defendants have acknowledged that there are unconstitutional applications of these statutes.” (emphasis added) Thus, Defendants while actually admitted that these statutes have been applied unconstitutionally against people in Tennessee, Lee and Skrmetti are still doing all that they can to trample the Second Amendment protections of Tennesseans and visitors to the state.

In light of the admissions by Lee and Skrmetti in the pleadings in this dispute that the state already has unconstitutionally enforced the two statutes, it is time that Trump’s Department of Justice should step in and bring Federal Civil Rights Acts claims against the state and the officials who have been violating these key constitutionally protected rights.