A federal judge in Virginia ruled that 18-to-20-year-old residents cannot be barred from purchasing handguns, arguing that such regulations aren’t in accordance with American traditions and history.
“Because the statutes and regulations in question are not consistent with our Nation’s history and tradition, they, therefore, cannot stand,” U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne wrote (pdf), concluding that the laws barring.
The ruling came in response to a case brought by 20-year-old Virginian, John Corey Fraser, who tried to purchase a handgun in May 2022 before he was denied the sale due to a federal ban on firearms dealers selling handguns to people under the age of 21. Fraser challenged the 1968 Gun Control Act and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) rule that makes the stipulation.
“If the Court were to exclude 18-to-21-year-olds from the Second Amendment’s protection, it would impose limitations on the Second Amendment that do not exist with other constitutional guarantees,” the judge wrote. “It is firmly established that the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eight, and Fourteenth Amendments vest before the age of 21.”
By that rationale, the “Second Amendment’s protections apply to 18-to-20-year-olds,” Payne wrote. “By adopting the Second Amendment, the people constrained both the hands of Congress and the courts to infringe upon this right by denying ordinary law-abiding citizens of this age the full enjoyment of the right to keep and bear arms unless the restriction is supported by the Nation’s history. That is what Bruen tells us.”
The judge was referring to a 2022 Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that ruled a New York state law regarding concealed carry weapons was unconstitutional. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority opinion, noted at the time that the order does not expand who can obtain and possess a firearm, adding that federal law generally bars people under the age of 21 from purchasing a handgun.\
“No federal appellate court, much less the Supreme Court, has squarely determined that the Second Amendment’s rights vest at age 21” Payne also wrote, concluding that “to date, three circuits, the Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh, have looked at this question head-on and have declined to answer it.”
Payne, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, further wrote that Alito did not carry out a “historical analysis” of whether individuals under the age of 21 should be able to buy a handgun. Alito’s “observation is in a concurrence and is a cursory comment at that,” he wrote, adding that “the Court notes it but gives it no analytical weight.”
He added that under the Bruen decision, the federal government has not “met its burden” in arguing that 18-to-20-year-olds are part of U.S. “history and tradition,” noting that founding-era militia laws are evidence that individuals in that age group could purchase firearms. Lawyers for the ATF and Department of Justice, meanwhile, only pointed to laws that came about decades after the founding of the nation, the judge also wrote.
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