A federal appeals court ruled that a federal law banning firearms stores from selling handguns to adults between 18 and 20 years old is unconstitutional.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law years ago, but on Thursday found the law unconstitutional under the conservative-majority Supreme Court’s expanded interpretation of the Second Amendment.
“Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel, who were all appointed by Republican presidents.
The 5th Circuit, widely regarded as the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, upheld the provision in 2012.
But the decades-old law has attracted increased scrutiny once the Supreme Court a decade later issued a landmark ruling that instructed judges to analyze whether gun control laws are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Rejecting the government’s emphasis that citizens originally couldn’t vote until they turned 21, the appeals panel said the Justice Department hadn’t met its burden to show young adults near the founding era were deprived of an individual right to self-defense.
“Eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds therefore must be covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment, as they were compulsorily enrolled in the regiments that the Amendment was written to protect,” Jones wrote.
Thursday’s decision in favor of a group of young adults and Second Amendment groups marks the latest major court decision finding a gun restriction unconstitutional in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent line of cases.
The high court last year, however, reversed the 5th Circuit’s ruling invalidating a federal gun possession ban for people with domestic violence restraining orders, saying the court had read the Second Amendment expansion too broadly.
Former President Biden’s Justice Department brought that case to the Supreme Court and defended the 18- to 20-year-old ban at the 5th Circuit, but Thursday’s ruling opens the door for the Trump administration to now appeal the latest case to the justices.
The Hill reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
