NASHVILLE – A federal lawsuit has been filed challenging Tennessee’s new permitless handgun-carry law, which starting July 1 would allow most adults to carry the weapons in public without having firearms training, undergoing state criminal background checks or having state-issued carry permits.
But the lawsuit doesn’t come from any group opposed to the carrying of handguns publicly without a permit.
Rather, the Sacramento, Calif.-based Firearms Policy Coalition, which says it is staunchly pro-gun rights, sued April 22 in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Tennessee on behalf of three Knox County residents.
Their civil rights complaint states that Gov. Bill Lee’s initiative doesn’t go far enough and has federal constitutional problems with regard to age requirements in light of the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
All three men of the men listed in the lawsuit say they are ages 18, 19 or 20 and can’t lawfully carry a handgun under the new statute, Public Chapter 108. The law restricts permitless carry to persons ages 21 and older. But it creates an exception for current members of the military or former service members who are under age 21 and have been honorably discharged from the military.