A recent decision from United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Reese vs ATF ruled the laws restricting 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from purchasing a handgun (18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1)) from a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) to be unconstitutional. The case was remanded back to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The ruling itself may be found at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25509805-reese-v-atf-opinion/#document/p1
The core of the issue becomes when you consider someone an adult. Naturally, there’s a political slant to all of this.
For most of the country, a person becomes an adult at age 18. With a few exceptions where parental consent is given, 18 is the age where you can vote, get married, enter legal contracts, join or be drafted into the military and be punished as an adult for crimes vs the juvenile justice system. Most in this age group are graduating high school and either going to college or entering the workforce and living on their own. Pretty straight forward adult type stuff.
Yet somehow, the gun control community believes the Second Amendment should not apply to young adults ages 18 through 20. They say you must be a full 21 years of age before the full protections of the Second Amendment apply to you.
BUT the very same people supporting this also believe:
An 18-year-old is mature enough to join the military and be issued and use handguns, fully automatic rifles, bazookas, mortars, artillery, tanks… you get the idea.
A 16-year-old is mature enough to vote and should be voting in local, state and national elections.
A child of single digit age is mature enough to determine their own sex/gender and obtain medical and surgical intervention without their parent’s knowledge or consent yet still have to be told to eat their vegetables, do their homework and chores and have a bedtime set by their parents.
One of the great lying with statistics examples is how the gun control community now says the leading cause of death in children is so-called “gun violence’. Is it true? ABSOLUTELY NOT! How did they come to this conclusion? Easy, by including ADULTS aged 18 & 19 in their counts. When you eliminate the 18- and 19-year-olds, you get what it has been for decades, traffic accidents.
Yet this lie is so pervasive and has been repeated so many times by so many left leaning ‘news’ groups, activists and politicians, it’s almost become a fact. And that’s the rationale behind doing it. If you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes fact.
According to the latest census data, this age group represents only 3.91% of the United States population. As a political force, they have minimal clout and practically zero representation. It’s very easy to choose this age group for discriminatory practices since they have neither the influence, nor resources to mount an effective challenge without the assistance of others.
Besides, it’s not a right denied it’s just a right delayed until they are a bit older. And within just a few years, far shorter than most legal challenges through our court system these days. Note: Figure out where “A right delayed is a right denied” originates and the legal arguments it has been used in to see the hypocrisy of the use here.
They argue the regulations do nothing to prohibit 18- 19- and 20-year-olds from owning, possessing, or carrying handguns, nor does it prohibit them from buying handguns in the unlicensed, private market or receiving handguns as gifts. This of course assumes universal background check laws are not in place, a parent is willing to provide a handgun, and the state allows them to carry a handgun.
In this case, the government argued that a limited ban on the purchase of handguns from FFLs is not an infringement on the Second Amendment rights, and in any event this age groups is not among “the people” protected by the right.
While founding era 18 to 20-year-old could not serve on jury, or vote, but there are no historical precedents for age restrictions for the Second Amendment.
Let’s also keep in mind in 1870, nearly eighty years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the Fifteenth Amendment extended voting rights to all Americans, regardless of race; and it was not until 1920 that the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. Finally, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the voting age for all Americans from twenty-one to eighteen in 1971.
The good news is there are organizations who are willing to represent and challenge these age discrimination laws. Challenges are being mounted in multiple states against laws which deny this age group the ability to purchase a handgun, any long gun, ammunition or obtain a concealed carry permit.
This ruling is a long time coming but will no doubt be challenged up to the United States Supreme Court, as it should be. This discriminatory law against young adults has no place in our country and needs to be jettisoned along with the rest of the do-nothing to increase public safety gun control laws that have been passed.
Young adults deserve to be able to protect themselves and their families at home and in public just the same as any other adult.
Bob
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