Bans on handgun sales to 18-20 age group ruled unconstitutional by federal appeals court

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a federal ban on handgun sales to people aged 18 to 20 violates the Second Amendment.

In a ruling from the three-judge panel, the 29-page opinion from Judge Edith H. Jones of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans stated that the rights of the Second Amendment “includes 18- to 20-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected.”

The ruling overturns a federal gun law that has criminalized the sale of handguns to 18- to 20-year-olds and used the Supreme Court's "historical tradition" test in order to come up with the ruling. The standard comes from a 2022 ruling, in which the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that gun laws subject to the Second Amendment have to be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation."

“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,’” Judge Jones added in the conclusion.

The president of the Firearms Policy Coalition praised the ruling, calling it a “win against an immoral and unconstitutional age-based gun ban,” according to the New York Times.

The ruling declared that restricting handgun purchases for those under 21 but over 18 was unconstitutional. In the ruling, Judge Jones also referred to the use of the draft to argue 18-year-olds and older should be able to purchase handguns. “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.”