Tennessee Concealed Carry Permit

Tennessee has no statute criminalizing the manufacture or assembly of a firearm for personal use by a non-prohibited person, no state firearm registration, and no general state requirement that a self-made firearm bear a serial number. I found no Tennessee 'ghost gun' / unfinished-frame-or-receiver serialization law. The Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act affirmatively contemplates private manufacture: '[a] personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Tennessee and that remains within the borders of Tennessee is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration.' 'Manufactured' is defined as 'creating a firearm... from basic materials for functional usefulness, including but not limited to forging, casting, machining, or other processes for working materials.' TWO QUALIFIERS. (1) There IS a marking requirement, but only for firearms claiming the Act's exemption: 'A firearm manufactured or sold in Tennessee under this chapter must have the words "Made in Tennessee" clearly stamped on a central metallic part, such as the receiver or frame.' That is a state-of-origin stamp, not a serial number. The Act does not apply to a firearm that cannot be carried and used by one person, a firearm with a bore over 1.5 inches using smokeless powder, exploding-projectile ammunition, or a firearm that discharges two or more projectiles with one trigger activation. (2) THE ACT'S CORE CLAIM IS NOT GOOD LAW AGAINST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Federal courts have rejected identical Firearms Freedom Acts from other states; the Gun Control Act, the National Firearms Act, and current ATF frame-and-receiver rules continue to apply in Tennessee regardless of the Act's declaration. Do not rely on it as a defense to a federal charge. Building a machine gun, short-barreled rifle or shotgun, or suppressor remains governed by federal law and by T.C.A. § 39-17-1302, and manufacturing for sale or transfer can trigger federal manufacturer/dealer licensing and serialization duties.

Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act, T.C.A. Title 4, Chapter 54 (enacted 2009 by HB 1796 / SB 1610); see also T.C.A. § 39-17-1302 (prohibited weapons)

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

What we could not confirm

• PERMITLESS CARRY AGE (most consequential open item): permitless carry itself is confirmed from the enacted bill text, but I could not read the CURRENT codified text of T.C.A. § 39-17-1351(b)(1) to see whether its age threshold now reads 18 or still reads 21 with the 21-limit unenforceable following the Beeler v. Long litigation. Because § 39-17-1307(g)(1) incorporates the § 39-17-1351(b)-(c) qualifications, and TDOSHS publishes 18 as the permit minimum age in two places, 18 is the sound reading — but an 18-20 year old carrying without a permit should verify with counsel or TDOSHS before relying on it.
• I could not access the codified Tennessee Code text at all. LexisNexis (the state's official TCA publisher at lexisnexis.com/hottopics/tncode) redirects to a JavaScript-driven Lexis Advance container that cannot be fetched, and publications.tnsosfiles.com returned HTTP 403. All statutory text here comes from enacted bill PDFs on capitol.tn.gov plus TDOSHS's own quotations, so amendments after those acts may not be reflected.
• Subsection letter for the out-of-state recognition rule: TDOSHS quotes the rule verbatim but does not cite a subsection. It is commonly § 39-17-1351(r); I did not verify the letter and therefore cited the section without it.
• Whether Tennessee's recognition of a permit 'issued by another state' extends to the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, or other U.S. territories. Not addressed on the official page, so DC and PR are excluded from the honors array rather than assumed.
• Processing time is genuinely unpublished — TDOSHS gives no estimate on any handgun permit page. Do not substitute a figure from a secondary source.
• Live fire for the Enhanced permit is inferred from TDOSHS's exemption language ('the firing range and classroom requirements'; 'exempt from taking the firing range portion of the Handgun Safety Class'). The department does not publish an hour-by-hour breakdown of the 8-hour curriculum, so I could not state how many of the 8 hours are range time.
• Non-resident permits: the TDOSHS FAQ describes an 8-year Enhanced permit for an out-of-state resident who proves employment in Tennessee at least 30 hours/week for at least 6 consecutive months. This is an employment-based exception, not an open non-resident permit — a non-resident with no Tennessee employment cannot obtain one. I could not verify the statutory citation for this provision.
• Instructor/school registry: Tennessee publishes no single public searchable registry. Certified Enhanced handgun safety schools are listed only inside the e-Services portal at https://dl.safety.tn.gov/_/, while the public locate.html page carries static tables of approved online CCP vendors and in-person schools. The URL given is the best official public entry point, not a true registry.
• Home manufacture rests partly on the absence of a prohibiting statute, which cannot be proven exhaustively from the sources I reached. I found no Tennessee serialization or unfinished-receiver law, but I could not run a full search of the codified Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 13.
• The Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act text quoted is the 2009 enacted bill; I could not confirm the codified section numbers within T.C.A. Title 4, Chapter 54 or whether the chapter has since been amended.
• Local ordinances and posted-premises rules (T.C.A. § 39-17-1359) were not surveyed and can restrict carry that is otherwise lawful statewide.
• Web search was unavailable for this run (session budget exhausted), so every page was reached by direct URL fetch. It is possible a newer official TDOSHS page or a 2025-2026 public chapter exists that I did not discover.