
(TheConservativeTimes.org) – A bombshell victory for Second Amendment rights has been secured as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down the unconstitutional federal ban on handgun sales to 18-20-year-olds.
This ruling, which applies to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, reaffirms the constitutional rights of young adults to bear arms.
The decision marks a significant blow to gun control advocates and their attempts to prevent Americans from owning firearms.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the longstanding federal restrictions on handgun sales to individuals under 21 are inconsistent with the Second Amendment.
“This argument is incompatible with Second Amendment precedent, nonsensical when considered against the backdrop of American suffrage, and contradicted by the history of firearm use at the founding,” the court said.
The ruling in Reese v. ATF overturns a 2012 decision by the same court that had upheld the ban, signaling a shift towards stronger protections for gun rights.
The court’s decision was heavily influenced by the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which set a new standard for evaluating gun laws based on historical tradition.
Applying this standard, the Fifth Circuit found insufficient historical evidence to support age-based restrictions on firearm purchases at the time of the nation’s founding.
Writing for the court, U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones dismantled the government’s arguments against allowing young adults to purchase handguns.
The ruling reads.
“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 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.”
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and the Second Amendment Foundation, organizations dedicated to protecting Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms, supported the case.
FPC president Brandon Combs hailed the ruling as “yet another critical FPC win against an immoral and unconstitutional age-based gun ban.”
He also expressed the coalition’s commitment to restoring Second Amendment rights for all law-abiding adults across the United States.
This decision effectively dismantles a key component of the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, which first enacted the federal restriction on handgun sales to individuals under 21.
The ruling allows 18-to-20-year-olds to purchase handguns from federally licensed firearms dealers for the first time in over five decades, marking a significant shift in gun policy.
As a result, Second Amendment advocates are celebrating this as a major step towards affirming the rights of younger adults to exercise their constitutional freedoms.
The ruling currently applies only to the states within the 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction, but it sets a powerful precedent that could influence similar cases across the nation.
It also reinforces the principle that law-abiding adults have the right to defend themselves and their loved ones regardless of age.
As challenges to similar restrictions in other circuits may follow, this decision could pave the way for a nationwide affirmation of young adults’ Second Amendment rights, ensuring that the Constitution’s protections apply equally to all adult citizens.
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