Firearms for Those Under 21

Many Democrat majority states, including New York State, are trying to ban firearm sales to those under 21.  NY Assembly proposed bill A346 tries to do this in NY State and made SCOPE’s list of the “10 Most Egregious Proposed Bills.”

Florida – of all places – passed such a bill a few years ago.  It is being challenged in court by the NRA.

The 11th U.S. Court of Appeals has let stand a Florida statute barring the purchase of long guns by young adults in the 18-to-20-year age group.

However,

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier won’t defend the law if appealed to the U S Supreme Court!

Uthmeier wrote, “Upon assuming office, I tasked my staff with reviewing Florida’s underlying law and whether it was consistent with the Second Amendment. Notwithstanding CA11’s opinion today, I believe restricting the right of law-abiding adults to purchase firearms is unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit quite recently reached the same conclusion. If the NRA decides to seek further review at SCOTUS, I am directing my office not to defend this law. Men and women old enough to fight and die for our country should be able to purchase firearms to defend themselves and their families.” (Emphasis added.)

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal law prohibiting those under age 21 from purchasing handguns violates the Second Amendment.  When there is a disagreement between sides, the U S Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has to decide, if appealed and if SCOTUS takes up the case.

The majority opinion in the Florida case said, “The Florida law that prohibits minors from purchasing firearms does not violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments…because it is consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation…During the Founding era, minors generally lacked unrestricted access to firearms.”

“The age of the majority ‘remained unchanged’ in the United States “from the country’s founding well into the twentieth century.” When World War II necessitated lowering the conscription age to 18, states lowered the age of majority too. And, in 1971, the ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to individuals at the age of 18. But for much of the first two centuries of our nation, our law limited the rights of individuals under the age of 21, including their purchase of firearms.

The dissenting opinion wrote, “In the absence of historical precedent, the Second Amendment does not allow for a categorical ban on the ability of law-abiding adults to purchase a firearm for self-defense. The majority opinion’s contrary conclusion is hard to understand as anything other than a declaration that Second Amendment rights—alone among all our constitutional rights—start at the age of twenty-one. This conclusion splits with at least three sister circuits. And it is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court has warned us that the Second Amendment is not a ‘second-class right,’ subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees. But the majority has read an age limit into the Second Amendment and that amendment alone.”

The dissent continued, “The Commissioner has presented no analogous Founding-era regulation that precluded young adults from purchasing firearms. The record of historical statutes the Commissioner did compile, which does not begin until the 1850s, does not establish a tradition of outlawing all firearms purchases by eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds. These statutes were passed many years after the Founding…”

It generally takes years for the courts to decide these cases.  In the meantime, we must stop NY A346 from being enacted so we do not have to live under it, until SCOTUS decides.