California Defends Age-Based Gun Ban Before Ninth Circuit Panel

A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sounded surprisingly skeptical on Tuesday about California’s defense of a state law prohibiting adults under the age of 21 from purchasing firearms unless they first take a hunter safety course, and bars them entirely from purchasing semiautomatic centerfire rifles. 

The case, known as PWGG v. Bonta, has been bouncing around the federal court system since 2019. Most recently, a U.S. District judge upheld California’s restrictions after concluding that the law does not even implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment because it does not fully preclude all 18-to-20-year-olds in California from acquiring any guns at all. 

California maintains that because the Founders treated the age of majority as 21, not 18, it’s fine for the state to continue to do so when it comes to gun ownership, even as 18-year-olds can vote and will be charged as adults if they’re accused of criminal offenses. 

Judge Wardlaw jokes that under California’s argument, the Second Amendment could be limited to land-owning white men because that’s only who could vote at the founding

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 23, 2026

Today’s panel was comprised of three Democrat-appointed judges, which doesn’t bode well for the plaintiffs, but the history is simply not on California’s side here. 

“There is no other constitutional right 18 year olds don’t have in this country.”

Exactly, great line Will.

To rule against us, this panel will have to essentially say the Second Amendment is indeed a second-class right.

— SAF (@2AFDN) June 23, 2026

“Will” is attorney Will Bergstrom, who was arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs today, and he did a fantastic job tearing apart California’s carefully constructed theory that the state can place these “commonsense limitations” (their word, not mine) on young adults because 18, 19, and 20-year-olds were treated as minors in some applications of the law back in 1791. 

Wardlaw asks if there’s a circuit split.

CA confirms there is, but pretends there is only one court on our side (the Fifth). But the Third Circuit and Eighth circuit also agreed with us on other young adult cases. Granted, they are about carry rights.

— SAF (@2AFDN) June 23, 2026

According to SAF’s Kostas Moros, Judge John B. Owens seemed “stoked” to read what the Supreme Court has to say in the upcoming Wolford v. Lopez case and is likely to ask for supplemental briefing, though I don’t know what a case involving Hawaii’s “vampire rule” could tell the panel about depriving young adults of their ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights like every other adult 21 and older. 

One question that didn’t come up during today’s arguments, but one that I’m always curious about in age-related challenges, is whether older adults can have similar conditions imposed on them, not just adults under the age of 21. Can you age out of the right to keep and bear arms, in other words? If young adults are too irresponsible to exercise thier right to keep and bear arms, what about senior citizens who might be suffering from undiagnosed neurological issues or the simple forgetfulness that comes with growing older? 

I’d like to think the answer is “no,” and maybe it’s best to let that sleeping dog lie until or unless an anti-gun state moves to strip senior citizens of their Second Amendment rights. Still, if the government can get away with saying some adults are still too young to keep and bear arms, I worry that at some point the corollary argument will be made that some of us are too old to own guns too. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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