2A Orgs File Brief in California Challenge of Gun Ban for Adults Under 21

Nothing describes the way the Second Amendment is viewed as a second-class right by far too many lawmakers as bans preventing adults under 21 from buying guns.

We wouldn’t do this with any other right, either one protected by the Constitution or otherwise. No one would consider saying police only need a warrant to search your car if you’re over 21. No one would say that you don’t have the right to voice your opinion if you’re not also old enough to buy a beer. So why is the right to keep and bear arms any different?

Ultimately, it’s not, but some places act like it is.

Take California. (Please?)

They’re a prime example, and there’s a challenge trying to end their ban on gun sales to adults under 21. The Second Amendment Foundation has just filed a brief, along with its partners, on this challenge.

Via a press release sent on Monday:

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have their opening appellate brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in PWGG v. Bonta (formerly Jones v. Bonta), SAF’s challenge to California’s firearm purchase ban for adults under 21 years old. 

Adults under the age of 21 in California are effectively banned from purchasing firearms, including semiautomatic centerfire rifles of any type. Originally filed in 2019, the lawsuit presents a simple yet profound question: May a peaceable citizen of this nation, legally dependent on no one but himself or herself for care and protection, nevertheless be deprived of the right to keep and bear arms on account of age? The protections codified by the Second Amendment say no.

“California lawmakers believe they can vote away the fundamental rights of a subset of the adult population,” said SAF Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “But fortunately for all Americans, the rights codified in our Constitution are memorialized there to prevent precisely that sort of behavior. Imagine if you will, extending that capability to other fundamental rights. Perhaps the California legislature would prefer 19-year-olds not have free speech, or the right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure. Gun rights are not second-class rights, and their deprivation is no less egregious.”   

SAF is joined in the case by the Firearms Policy Coalition and California Gun Rights Coalition, along with two licensed firearms dealers – Poway Weapons and Gear and North County Shooting Center. 

As noted in the brief, “The Second Amendment’s plain text extends to cover the right of ‘the people to keep and bear arms.’ ‘The people’ encompasses, as the Supreme Court has already held, all Americans.”

“The purchase restrictions on 18-20-year-olds in California is nothing more than the normal fearmongering we expect out of the state,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The discriminatory practice of banning a certain age of adult from acquiring firearms in California is an affront to the peaceable citizens who wish to exercise their full Second Amendment rights. This case has dragged on long enough and it is past time for this issue to be resolved to allow adults of all ages in California to purchase firearms.” 

It should be noted that I routinely see reports of people under 21 being arrested for various crimes in California who are also found in possession of a firearm, usually a handgun. It seems ample evidence that if even the federal prohibition on selling certain guns to people under 21, there’s no chance of the state’s ban on other guns for the same age group is going to do anything to reduce violent crime.

I mean, it hasn’t so far.

As noted above, the question isn’t about juveniles who can’t make decisions for themselves lawfully and can’t live on their own, thus having to be responsible for their own safety. It’s about adults who can, and this law means that many of them are unable to make their own decisions on whether or not to own a firearm. Instead, the state has made it for them.

Again, this is something no one would seriously suggest for any other civil liberty. If they even tried, they’d be laughed out of the legislature for it, and no court would even consider taking it seriously should it pass. There are lines that we’re not willing to cross with other rights.

Yet for guns, this is routine. It’s considered acceptable.

I’d have more respect for these people if they’d just admit that they see it as a second-class right at best and, for most of them, something that should be relegated to the status of a privilege. 

So yeah, I’m hoping this case works out well. I’m sick of seeing adults under 21 be deprived of basic, constitutionally protected rights simply because the Karens of the country think they’re too young to have it.