A federal appeals court on Thursday struck down a handgun ban on adults under the age of 21, ruling that the current age-based restriction violated the right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
The ruling is the latest since the Supreme Court established a new test for assessing modern firearms laws in 2022. The conservative-led Supreme Court determined in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, that current gun restrictions were required to be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that 18- 20-year-olds are among those whose “right to keep and bear arms is protected.”
“The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban, and its 19th-century evidence ‘cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence,'” the judges wrote in their decision, per CNN.
The ruling is in response to a federal ban on handgun sales to people under 21, which was first adopted by Congress in 1968 as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, Reuters reported.
The law was challenged by a group of 18- to 20-year-olds and the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation. The appeals court overturned a lower court judge’s ruling that upheld the federal statutes.
Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News.
Reprinted with Permission from Just The News – By Misty Severi
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
I hope this means the law they passed in Colorado last year will be reversed. Colorado is SO uber liberal thanks to all those that moved in the last 10 years, they are so anti-gun it’s ridiculous.
One of my grandsons is in the Coast Guard and 18 yrs of age. He uses guns while on Active Duty. When he comes home on leave, he can’t touch a gun…. until now.
Carrying concealed should be allowed for anyone who can carry.
This shows the importance of having a president who appoints judges who SUPPORT the Constitution! Obama’s and Biden’s appointments are ALL activists who HATE America and one SCOTUS cannot even define the word “woman.”
Shall NOT Infringe….. Nuf said
After reading through these comments, I feel the need to toss in my two cents! well, this is long so it’s more than two cents! The populous of this country determined long, long ago that when a child reaches the age of 18, they are no longer the responsibility of their parents and are from that day forward an adult bringing with the title both good and not so good responsibilities! They can now vote, they can join the military (assuming they have never been in trouble and are both physically and mentally cleared), they can enter into a contract to rent or purchase a home or a car, and they can go to big boy jail if they commit a crime.
But we, the older people, are now going to determine that regardless of the individual person and their ability to adapt to the adult world, they are ALL too young to own a handgun. I know many 16-year-olds who are more mature and responsible than the 35-year-old parents they have. I would trust those ‘kids’ with a firearm long before I would trust their parents who can legally own the gun! As a nation, we must determine if we are going to follow the supreme laws of the land or if we are going to oblige the corrupt politicians who have decided for us for too long! The Constitution is not a buffet document that we can pick and choose what rights we will endorse and which we will ignore and even make optional. Let’s not forget that it doesn’t matter how many Constitution-destroying laws we make or change, it is never the law-abiding citizens that are violating the law it is the people that don’t give a rat’s patootie what the law says! I am willing to take it even further by stating what we will see if the legal age is changed for gun ownership from 18 to 21. There are going to be a lot more 18 to 20-year-olds as victims of crimes! Every time a new gun restriction is made it opens a brand new category of gun violence victims!
The Constitution lists our inalienable rights, which means they are the rights of every single American Citizen when they reach the age of 18, and they cannot be taken away from us! Consider how long the corrupt politicians have been trying to disarm the entire country! It starts simply enough with the banning of specific guns, then the reduction in the number of shells a magazine is permitted to hold, then specific stipulations on the issuance of a conceal-and-carry permit, they determine what criminal history, whether they be just charges or actual convictions whether violent or not, will remove our right to own a gun for the rest of our lives.
example: I know a single mother of 5 who, because of her minimal education (5th grade), unknowingly committed welfare fraud shortly after turning 18. She was charged and convicted of a felony. She is now over 60. Her friend was released from prison and slept on her couch for a brief time. His parole visits went well, and they never bothered with areas of the home the friend had no access to. One day, parole showed up, not the normal two officers but a team of 6, they demanded everyone exit the house, cuffing her and sitting her in the driveway, they searched the whole house, spending several hours doing so! In the process, they forced the lock on her son’s door and found his personal safe, when she explained she had no access and no idea of the contents of the locked safe inside the locked room, they proceeded to cut the safe open. inside was a handgun legally registered to the son, along with important documents and some jewelry. the parolee spent 5 days in jail while it was decided if he would be violated (he was released without new charges). The woman was informed a DOJ check showed she was a felon, and therefore, she, too, was being arrested for having a firearm in her home. It took a lot of pleading and the timely arrival of a friend suggesting a lawsuit as a result of the illegal search, illegally detaining her in cuffs without placing her under arrest, then the arrest based on an illegal search and seizure, as well as the damage to the home, destruction of the safe, and theft of the legal handgun plus the personal trauma from the embarrassment of sitting in front of her neighbors for two hours in cuffs wearing her pajamas before she was finally released from the cuffs and allowed to return inside. the parolee was still taken along with the gun, which took several weeks for her son to recover. So here was a woman who had not even had a jaywalking ticket in the 42 years following her non-violent felony conviction, subjected to law enforcement violating a bucket full of her Constitutional rights.
This is why it is important not to allow our rights to be infringed upon! According to the Constitution, she has a right to own a gun to defend herself, her family, her home, and her country! But because some politicians made a blanket law, if she exercises that right, she will go to jail! The fact that she cannot own a gun leaves her vulnerable to criminals or foreign invaders who would break into her home to rob, violate, and possibly kill her and her family!
The founders left us this carefully and cautiously written document to live by so we would have a fair and just society, it has withstood the test of time and remains the law of the land. We must choose whether we defend our right to live by it or do we risk the anarchy that will result from using it as a legal buffet?!
AFTER THOUGHT… On the topic of the age of an adult owning guns vs. the age of military personnel defending this country, I remember stories told by my dad, when he was determined to be a problem youth, in and out of court for an array of infractions and petty crimes, the judge finally fed up with his disregard for the law gave him an option of joining the military or being incarcerated for a lengthy period of time! To this day, he credits the army for making him into a responsible person with a strong work ethic! But today, this is not an option for judges to offer to these young criminals, to be admitted into the military now, you cannot have a criminal record of any kind! So instead of getting these little criminals off the street and pointed in the right direction, we stick them in jail for brief periods over and over until they commit worse crimes, and we incarcerate them longer, and eventually, we institutionalize them til the only life they know is crime and punishment. I say bring back the military option and turn these would-be hoodlums into men, it’s the best restitution available! They are off the streets for a few years, they learn to follow the rules, they learn a trade, and come home with job skills and a willingness to become contributing members of society!
Remember the argument for lowering the voting age? Same logic here.
This ruling is correct. What worries me most, especially as of late, is voter registrations in the hands of “democrats”, or anyone who would vote for one. Personal immaturity and voter registrations don’t mix, and, have proven to be an even deadlier combination than 16-year-olds and driver’s licenses. If they’re not ready, someone has to say “no”.
The United States Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
Never understood how “shall not be infringed” was misunderstood. Or allowed to be misunderstood.
you can get drafted you should be entitled to it. Also should be allowed to drink alcohol at 18. We did in NYS when I was a kid then the law changed because NYS was not allowed to get federal money for roads unless they did
This is a just insight to the 2 amendment since through out our history based just on the draft implement during war. I won’t get into the wacked ideas of the left. Some thinking of the left is so far out in space like California its inconceivable.
A kid that Graduates high school is usually 18 and is then considered an adult. Anyone below 18 and still in school or even if they drop out should not be allowed to buy handguns. Also, let me remind everyone that under the past decades of the democrat’s education of dumbing down, a lot of kids have come out of schools as problem children and have no business owning any kind of guns, especially handguns that can easily be hid and taken into places they don’t belong. With the way the democrats have changed America we really need to be careful how this subject is handled. Now more than ever, kids under 18 should have to attend mandatory classes on how to properly handle all guns before they can legally handle one or even purchase one.
This is a tough one for me. I believe all gun laws are infringements to a fundamental right. That said, todays 19-year-olds so many of them are like the 11-year-old of my generation. No critical thought processes, low common sense, and poor social interaction skills because they spend so much time gaming and have been force fed the liberal Kool-Aid and wokism. Maybe everything should revert back to 21. Drinking, Voting. Marriage, and Firearm ownership.
I got a hunting license when I was 16. I lived in New York and at that time NY required that I attend an NRA gun safety course and present my NRA card proving I had attended the course in order to get that license. Believe me when I say I didn’t hunt with a slingshot. The liberal haters of out rights have ruined freedom rights in NY and many other states, they should be included in deportation to bring sanity as well as faith back to this country.
If 18-20 year old can be soldiers and fight in wars. They should be able to buy guns at that age. I am not advocating arming them. But the right to bear arms is extended to adults and if the federal govt gives them the right to vote and can join the military. We just have to make sure the criminal element among this age group is denied a license to buy a gun. I know they will buy it out on the street and also that has to be resolved by prosecuting these illegal gun sellers after the police has arrested them. It is just too many woke DAs that let them back on the streets. Their argument, jail is not a deterrent. Maybe incarceration should be an opportunity for counseling, job training, education, life skills be taught. Maybe then these young men turn into productive citizens instead of feeling resentment that they have been forgotten.
I tried to bring back an Chinese SKS rifle and a Chinese Tokarev pistol. Even though I was a CW2 helicopter pilot, I was only 20 y/o and they would not let me bring back the pistol. I hear that pistol has weak safety devices.The day after my 21st B-day I bought myself a Colt Trooper Mk III which was the first Colt transfer bar safety. Still have it 53 years.
Although I am for allowing youths to legally carry, gang members are applauding the court ruling.
Children, those under the age of 20 or 21, are too young to vote or to own firearms. At that age, they should be supervised and educated to be trusted to do either.