Federal appeals court rules gun ban on 18- to 20-year-olds is unconstitutional

A law barring young adults from being able to get concealed-carry weapons permits is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Minnesota has not shown that the founders would have countenanced an age-based restriction on gun ownership, so its concealed-carry law barring those under 21 from obtaining permits cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.

“Minnesota claims that 18 to 20-year-olds present a danger to the public, but it has failed to support its claim with enough evidence,” wrote Judge Duane Benton, an appointee of George W. Bush, in upholding an injunction against the state’s law.

The ruling comes just weeks after the Supreme Court tweaked gun jurisprudence in the Rahimi decision, ruling that the government can bar someone from possessing a gun if he has been deemed a danger, even without a criminal conviction. That ruling slightly walked back the court’s expansive 2022 Bruen decision, which seemed to suggest many gun control laws would be unconstitutional.

Judge Benton said under his reading of the two cases, the government must show a specific reason why a group of people being restricted from gun possession would have been dangerous in the eyes of the founding generation, when the Second Amendment was crafted.

He said that while other parts of the Constitution contain age restrictions, the Second Amendment does not.

“Ordinary, law-abiding 18 to 20-year-old Minnesotans are unambiguously members of the people. Because the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the plaintiffs and their conduct, it is presumptively constitutionally protected and requires Minnesota to proffer an adequate historical analog consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” he wrote.

Minnesota argued that residents ages 18 to 20 weren’t competent to make decisions about guns, and so the state’s ban was similar to founding-era laws against dangerous people possessing firearms. The state compared its ban to early laws barring people who have mental illness from having a gun.

The court rejected that comparison.

“Minnesota may not claim all 18 to 20-year-olds are comparable to the mentally ill. This court declines to read a new category into the list of presumptively lawful statutes,” Judge Benton wrote.

Minnesota’s law was challenged by several gun rights groups, including the Second Amendment Foundation.

“This is a significant victory for the rights of young adults,” said Alan M. Gottlieb, the foundation’s founder. “It is one more step in our crusade to win firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time.”

The decision is one of a host of cases playing out in lower courts in the wake of the Bruen and Rahimi rulings.

State bans fall largely into three categories: What sort of weapons can be restricted, what sort of persons can be prohibited and what locations can be limited.