In a major win for gun rights, the SAF and its partners have successfully challenged the federal government’s prohibition on handgun sales to young adults. A three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to overturn a lower court decision, declaring the restriction unconstitutional and remanding the case for further proceedings.
The case, Reese v. ATF, was brought by SAF along with Firearms Policy Coalition, Louisiana Shooting Association and two private citizens, Emily Naquin and Caleb Reese. The plaintiffs argued that banning law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds from purchasing handguns was a clear violation of their Second Amendment rights.
Young Adults Have Full Second Amendment Protections
Writing for the panel, Judge Edith Hollan Jones—appointed by Ronald Reagan—delivered a decisive opinion, stating that the Second Amendment applies fully to 18-to-20-year-olds and that the federal government failed to provide historical precedent justifying the ban.
“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,” Jones wrote. She further emphasized that the government’s historical arguments were weak, noting that post-founding-era laws cannot override the Constitution’s original meaning.
“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,” she continued. “In sum, 18 U.S.C. §§ 992(b)(1), (c)(1) and their attendant regulations are unconstitutional in light of our Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation.”
Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod (appointed by George W. Bush) and Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale (appointed by George H.W. Bush) joined in the ruling, which closely followed the legal framework established by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in 2022.
SAF Applauds Recognition of Young Adults’ Rights
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb welcomed the ruling as a critical reaffirmation of the rights of young Americans.
“We have always maintained that young adults, who can vote, join the military, get married, enter into contracts and even run for office, can also enjoy the full rights of citizenship, which includes rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb said. “If we can trust young adults to defend our country, we can certainly trust them to own any and all legal firearms.”
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut echoed this sentiment, noting that the ruling is a commonsense recognition of the reality that constitutional rights do not start at age 21.
“Today the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed what prior courts and common sense tell us: ‘that the right to keep and bear arms surely implies the ability to purchase them,’” Kraut said. “Adults 18-20 years old are indisputably part of ‘the People,’ whose rights under the Constitution are no less than their father’s or their grandfather’s.”
A Landmark Case with National Implications
This decision is a major setback for federal gun control efforts that seek to limit access to lawful firearm purchases based on arbitrary age restrictions. It also sets an important precedent that could influence challenges to other restrictions targeting younger adults across the country and stopped dead in it’s tracks such as those passed by the Virginia Senate and reported on just today.
As Reese v. ATF heads back to the lower courts, SAF and its allies remain committed to ensuring that all law-abiding Americans, regardless of age, can exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
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