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. Not Article VI. Not void ab initio. Not Norton v. Shelby County. 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. His gun was locked in a safe. The Fifth Circuit held that 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied. 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. Oral arguments were held March 2, 2026. A decision is expected by June.
What the TFA and GOA Actually Argued
The GOA brief argued that Bruen historical tradition standard provides no founding-era support for permanently disarming someone based on intoxicant use status rather than active intoxication. 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. 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.
What the Right Argument Would Be
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 void. Step three: Norton v. Shelby County confirmed that an unconstitutional act is not a law. It is as inoperative as though it had never been passed. Under that argument, 922(g)(3) is void from the day it was enacted in 1968. Not as applied to marijuana users. From the day it was enacted. Every prosecution under it since then has been enforcing a nullity. 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. 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.