Six duck hunters in Sweetwater are asking Tennessee’s appellate courts to decide whether a city can use a blanket firearm-discharge ordinance to stop a hunt conducted on private land. The answer could reach well beyond this Monroe County dispute, touching how every Tennessee city handles lawful hunting inside its boundaries.
An appeal brief filed Monday with the East Tennessee Court of Appeals challenges the hunters’ convictions for discharging firearms inside Sweetwater’s city limits. FOX 17 News reports that Sweetwater has 30 days to file its formal response.
How A $100 Case Became A Statewide Test
The hunters were cited on December 1 and December 28, 2024, while duck hunting on private property inside Sweetwater. Three of the men had purchased a 17-acre tract within the city specifically for duck hunting, and the filing says all six had valid Tennessee hunting licenses, federal duck stamps, and were hunting during authorized dates.
Each hunter was convicted of two municipal violations and fined $50 per count, plus court costs, after the case moved from Sweetwater Municipal Court to Monroe County Circuit Court. The circuit court upheld the convictions, setting up an appeal built around questions of state authority, constitutional rights and the meaning of the city’s ordinance.
Sweetwater’s municipal code says it is unlawful for any “unauthorized person” to discharge a firearm within the city’s corporate limits, according to the Sweetwater municipal code. The hunters argue that state hunting rules made them authorized to use shotguns during the duck season, while the lower court found that no state law expressly permitted firearm discharge inside Sweetwater’s boundaries.
The Legal Fight Is About Who Gets To Set Hunting Rules
At the center is Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-17-1314, which, as it existed when the citations were issued, allowed local governments to regulate firearm discharge inside their boundaries except when the discharge was expressly authorized or permitted by state law. The appellants say Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission proclamations, federal waterfowl rules and the state’s broader hunting framework authorized their conduct.
A Tennessee Attorney General opinion describes broad state preemption of firearm regulation while recognizing that local rules cannot conflict with state law. The appeal also raises Tennessee’s constitutional right to hunt and fish, along with a vagueness argument over the ordinance’s undefined phrase “unauthorized person.”
Lawmakers Drew A New Line While The Appeal Was Pending
The relevant state law was approved on April 7, 2026, not in 2025. The Tennessee General Assembly’s bill record says Public Chapter 673 bars local governments from regulating the manner and means of taking wildlife, including firearm discharge while lawfully hunting, and places that authority with the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission.
The amendment does not erase every local safety rule: it preserves local regulation of firearm discharge by a lawful hunter within 500 feet of school property. It also leaves room for generally applicable laws targeting reckless or unsafe conduct, so the new statute is not a blanket authorization to fire a gun anywhere inside a city.
Mike Butler, executive director of the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, told FOX 17 News that he supports the appeal and believes hunting regulation should not become a patchwork of local ordinances. The hunters’ filing makes a similar statewide argument, warning that city-by-city restrictions could interfere with uniform wildlife management.
What Happens Next
Sweetwater has 30 days to file its response, after which the East Tennessee Court of Appeals will decide whether to affirm or reverse the convictions. Because the citations arose in 2024, the judges must examine the law as it existed then while also considering lawmakers’ stated view that the 2026 changes reaffirmed, rather than replaced, Tennessee’s control over lawful hunting.
