Anti-Gun AGs Mount Defense of Carry Ban for Young Adults

My colleague Tom Knighton has highlighted Gun Owners of America’s consternation over Pennsylvania’s Republican Attorney General deciding to defend the state’s ban on adults under the age of 21 openly carrying a firearm, and the 2A group has good reason to be incensed by Dave Sunday’s move to keep the ban in place. As GOA notes, Sunday told the group in its 2024 candidate survey that he opposes laws that would take away the rights of under-21s to purchase, possess, and lawfully carry firearms, but now he’s using his office to keep a prohibition in place. 

While Attorney Generals are expected to defend the current laws in their states, there are always exceptions, and this should be one of them. California AG Rob Bonta, for instance, refused to defend a law championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that allowed residents to sue the makers, sellers, and distributors of “illegal assault weapons” and damages because of constitutional concerns. That option was and is available to Sunday as well, but instead he’s decided to join ranks with some of the most anti-gun AGs in arguing to uphold the carry ban.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is spearheading a coalition of attorneys general in a legal battle to uphold a Pennsylvania statute that restricts concealed carry for individuals under 21. The coalition, which comprises 19 attorneys general, has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, pushing for a review of a decision that had previously struck down the law. This group intervention seeks to preserve the ability of states to set regulations aimed at preventing gun violence, particularly among young people. 

No, the anti-gun AGs want to curtail the Second Amendment rights of young adults. In fact, these AGs believe that adults under the age of 21 don’t have any right to keep and bear arms, arguing that the historical tradition of gun ownership in the United States, particularly at the time of the Founding, limited the exercise of our Second Amendment rights to those 21 and older. 

The Third Circuit rightfully rejected those arguments in its opinion handed down last month, noting that if the judges were “rigidly limited by eighteenth-century conceptual boundaries, ‘the people’ would consist solely of white, landed men, and that is obviously not the state of the law.” 

While the age of majority might have been 21 back in 1791, today 18-year-olds are broadly considered adults, and they have full access to every other enumerated right protected by the Constitution. As the Third Circuit panel opined in Lara v. Paris:

It is undisputed that 18-to-20-year-olds are among “the people” for other constitutional rights such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, the freedom to peaceably assemble and to petition the government, and the right against unreasonable searches and seizures. Heller cautions against the adoption of an inconsistent reading of “the people” across the Constitution. Indeed, wholesale exclusion of 18-to-20-year olds from the scope of the Second Amendment would impermissibly render “the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense … ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’”

It’s not surprising to see Kwame Raoul, New Jersey AG Matthew Platkin, Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, and other Democrat attorneys general work to prevent young adults from exercising their Second Amendment rights. It’s not a shock that Everytown is desperately attempting to defend the carry ban either.

Everytown has filed an Amicus Brief supporting PA’s request for a full court hearing to overturn our Lara v. Paris victory.

Their argument:
Reconstruction-era laws are the true Second Amendment standard.

The laws from “when the Bill of Rights was ratified” not so much.

LOL pic.twitter.com/BUIz9HIau8

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) February 18, 2025

I have no idea why Sunday has decided to join their ranks, but he owes Pennsylvania voters and the Second Amendment advocates who supported his campaign an explanation if he’s going to reverse course on under-21s and their right to keep and bear arms.