On February 19, 2026, the Gun Owners of America filed an amicus brief in United States v. Hemani at the Supreme Court. Attached to that brief was a list of co-signers. One of them was the Tennessee Firearms Association.
The TFA is the organization Monty Fritts has aligned with in his campaign for governor of Tennessee. The August 6 primary is 79 days away. Fritts has refused NRA money and positioned himself as the harder constitutional line. The TFA has positioned itself the same way nationally. No compromise. Article VI is absolute.
So what argument did the TFA make at the Supreme Court?
The Bruen historical tradition argument. The same managed framework your platform has been documenting since the first article. Not Article VI. Not void ab initio. Not Norton v. Shelby County. The argument that Congress has no authority to infringe the right the Constitution commands shall not be infringed was not in that brief.
The TFA went to the Supreme Court and made the wrong argument.
The Case
Ali Hemani is a Texas man who kept a Glock 9mm handgun locked in a safe at his home. FBI agents executing a search warrant found the gun, 60 grams of marijuana, and 4.7 grams of cocaine. The government indicted him under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the provision that makes it a federal felony for anyone who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance to possess a firearm.
Hemani was not intoxicated when the agents arrived. He was not brandishing the weapon. He was not threatening anyone. His gun was locked in a safe. The government’s theory is that his status as a marijuana user made his possession of a firearm a federal felony regardless of whether he was intoxicated at the time. The district court dismissed the indictment. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in January 2025, holding that § 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied. The Fifth Circuit’s reasoning was straightforward: historical intoxication laws from the founding era regulated conduct while intoxicated. They did not impose permanent status-based disarmament on people whose only offense was that they had used an intoxicant at some point in the past. The government found no historical analogue for the permanent status-based version. Under Bruen, the statute failed.
The government petitioned the Supreme Court. Solicitor General D. John Sauer signed the petition. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on October 20, 2025. Oral arguments were held March 2, 2026. A decision is expected by June.
What the Arguments Were
Hemani’s defense team, led by Erin Murphy of Clement and Murphy with support from the ACLU and the CLEAR Clinic at CUNY, made two arguments. First, § 922(g)(3) is unconstitutionally vague because its plain text gives no notice of how frequent, how recent, or how substantial drug use must be before the prohibition applies. Second, it violates the Second Amendment as applied because there is no historical tradition of permanently disarming someone based on intoxicant use status rather than active intoxication.
The government argued that Congress has authority to disarm categories of people it determines present a special danger of misuse, that habitual drunkard laws from the founding era provide a sufficient historical analogue, and that the restriction is only temporary because a person regains the right to possess firearms simply by stopping drug use.
At oral argument, justices across the political spectrum were skeptical of the government. Justice Gorsuch noted the nontrivial use of intoxicants during the founding era. Justice Barrett pointed out how sweeping the prohibition truly is, applying to anyone who uses marijuana in a state where it is legal, for medical purposes or otherwise, regardless of whether they are anywhere near intoxicated when they possess a firearm. The general consensus from observers was that a narrow ruling limiting the scope of § 922(g)(3) rather than completely overturning it appears most likely.
What the TFA and GOA Actually Argued
The GOA brief, filed February 19 and joined by the TFA, made two points.
First, the brief accused the government of deliberately selecting an unsympathetic defendant to get favorable precedent. The government had led its certiorari petition with multiple references to Hemani’s alleged FBI investigation for ties to Iranian Revolutionary Guard affiliates. The GOA called this what it was: handpicking unsympathetic criminal defendants to justify preferred gun control. The brief told the Court to decide the easy question presented and ignore the government’s irrelevant character assassination.
That is a legitimate tactical point and a correct one. The government chose this case specifically because Hemani’s background made him easy to paint as dangerous. That is a manipulation of the certiorari process designed to produce bad precedent from an unsympathetic set of facts. The GOA was right to call it out.
Second, the brief argued that Bruen’s historical tradition standard provides no founding-era support for permanently disarming someone based on intoxicant use status rather than active intoxication. Historical laws regulated conduct while intoxicated. They did not create permanent status-based disabilities. Therefore § 922(g)(3) fails the Bruen test.
That is the managed framework argument. It accepts that Congress has some authority to regulate firearms. It accepts that Bruen is the correct constitutional standard. It asks the Court to find that this particular application of congressional authority lacks adequate historical support. If the Court agrees, § 922(g)(3) gets narrowed or struck down as applied. The framework that gave birth to it remains intact. Congress writes a narrower version. The fight starts over.
The Article VI argument is not in the brief. The argument that Congress has no constitutional authority to create a prohibited persons list of any kind, because the Second Amendment commands shall not be infringed and that command leaves no room for congressional authority to create permanent disarmament categories, is not there. Norton v. Shelby County is not cited. Void ab initio is not argued. The constitutional root of the entire § 922(g) framework was not challenged.
What the Right Argument Would Be
The constitutional argument that would actually end § 922(g)(3) is not complicated. It has three steps.
Step one: the Second Amendment commands shall not be infringed. That command is addressed to government with no exceptions in the text.
Step two: Article VI says only laws made in pursuance of the Constitution are supreme law. A law that violates a constitutional command is not made in pursuance of it. It is void.
Step three: Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886), confirmed that an unconstitutional act is not a law. It confers no rights, imposes no duties, and affords no protection. It is as inoperative as though it had never been passed.
Under that argument, the question is not whether § 922(g)(3) has an adequate historical analogue under Bruen. The question is whether Congress has any constitutional authority to permanently strip a right the Second Amendment commands shall not be infringed from any citizen based on any status label it chooses to apply.
The answer is no. The text commands shall not be infringed. There is no marijuana user exception. There is no drug addict exception. There is no unlawful user exception. Congress invented those exceptions. Article VI does not recognize laws that contradict constitutional commands as supreme law. Norton confirms they never had legal force.
That argument voids § 922(g)(3) from the day it was enacted in 1968. Not as applied to marijuana users. Not as applied to people who are sober when they possess a firearm. From the day it was enacted. Every prosecution under it since then has been enforcing a nullity.
The GOA did not make that argument. The TFA did not make that argument. The NRA did not make that argument. The SAF did not make that argument. The FPC did not make that argument. Not one organization with resources to pursue it to conclusion made it the primary foundation of their brief.
They all made the Bruen argument instead. The managed framework argument. The argument that draws a new line inside a framework the Constitution never authorized.
The Tennessee Connection
Monty Fritts has refused PAC money and aligned with the TFA rather than the NRA. That is a meaningful distinction in terms of funding. It is a distinction without constitutional difference in terms of argument.
The TFA just went to the Supreme Court and made the same Bruen historical tradition argument the NRA made. The same SAF made. The same FPC made. The constitutional ceiling of the Tennessee Firearms Association is Bruen. The constitutional root argument that would actually end the framework the TFA claims to oppose is not the argument the TFA makes when it gets to the Supreme Court.
The question every candidate aligned with the TFA needs to answer is the same question every candidate aligned with the NRA needs to answer. Do you accept that Congress has any constitutional authority to infringe the right to keep and bear arms?
If the answer involves historical traditions, Bruen standards, reasonable restrictions on dangerous persons, or any other qualification, you have your answer. The candidate is operating inside the same framework the TFA just defended at the Supreme Court. The constitutional commitment is political, not textual. The August 6 primary is 79 days away. The interview requests have been sent. The answers are not on record yet.
Hemani will be decided by June. Whatever the ruling is, the framework will survive it. The constitutional argument that would have ended the framework was not made. The machine keeps running. The fight continues. The fundraising emails will go out.
The text has not changed. Shall not be infringed still means what it said in 1791. The argument is still there. It is still waiting to be made.