Federal court rules ban on handgun sales to adults under age 21 is unconstitutional

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a decades-old ban on federally licensed firearms dealers selling handguns to people aged 18, 19 and 20 is unconstitutional. 

In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel on the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals slammed the Biden administration’s attempt to argue that the handgun ban was in line with the “nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” — a test for gun laws set by the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.

“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,” the opinion authored by Judge Edith Jones stated. 

“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,’” added Jones, nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan.

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