Federal Judge Dismisses Challenge to Colorado Gun Control Law

A U.S. District Judge in Colorado has upheld the state’s ban on gun sales to adults younger than 21 after a federal appellate court previously ruled that the prohibition is kosher under the Constitution. 

Colorado’s ban took effect in 2023, and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, along with a couple of individual plaintiffs, were successful in obtaining a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law. On appeal by the state, however, the Tenth Circuit overturned that decision and allowed hte law to be enforced, ruling that the ban ‘falls within the safe harbor of ‘laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.'”

The appellate court acknowledged that even laws that are presumptively constitutional can be found invalid if they’re put towards abusive ends, but declared that preventing all young adults in the state from legally acquiring a firearm didn’t abuse the Second Amendment because “a minimum age requirement of 21 is a non discretionary condition or qualification on the commercial sale of arms aimed at ensuring guns are held by law abiding, responsible persons.”

That’s nonsensical on its face. The prohibition is absolutely discretionary. Federal law prohibits handgun sales to adults under 21 (which is itself the subject of numerous lawsuits), but allows adults 18 and older to purchase long guns at retail. The question is whether the state of Colorado has hte discretion to impose a blanket ban on gun sales to young adults, and the Tenth Circuit should have held the answer is an unequivocal “no”.

The case was sent back to Chief U.S. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer, who noted in yesterday’s decision that he is “bound by the Tenth Circuit’s interpretation of the text of the Second Amendment.” 

Brimmer’s order grants summary judgment to the state and dismisses a lawsuit filed by the gun rights group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and two young adults, Adrian Pineda and Matthew Newkirk, who sought to overturn Senate Bill 23-169. The law, enacted in 2023, prohibits licensed dealers from selling firearms to anyone under 21 and bars underage purchases outright, with exceptions for active military and law enforcement personnel.

The judge acknowledged that Pineda and Newkirk — both law-abiding adults under 21 — are part of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment. However, he concluded that the 10th Circuit had already resolved the case last year, ruling that age-based restrictions on gun sales are historically rooted and thus exempt from strict scrutiny under New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen (2022).

“The Tenth Circuit held that SB 23-169 is a constitutional condition for the commercial sale of arms,” Brimmer wrote, noting the plaintiffs “cannot establish a violation of a right secured by the Constitution.”

Brimmer’s hands were largely tied thanks to the prior decision by the Tenth Circuit, but that only underscores the need for the Supreme Court to step in and rectify the appellate court’s error. SCOTUS will have the opportunity to do so next term with NRA v. Glass, which is the challenge to Florida’s ban on gun sales to adults younger than 21. The NRA has already filed a cert petition with the Court, but Florida’s reply brief isn’t due until June 20, and the case will most likely be taken up in conference after the justices return from their summer recess. 

Meanwhile, RMGO is weighing its next steps. 

In a brief phone conversation Thursday afternoon, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners executive director Ian Escalante criticized the ruling as unconstitutional and contrary to the Bruen decision, suggesting it could justify any gun control law as a “commercial regulation.”

“The ruling was absolutely disgraceful,” Escalante said. “It flies in the face of the Constitution … and it was a deliberate attempt to circumvent Bruen by trying to say that, well, because it’s a commercial regulation, the Second Amendment doesn’t apply. Which, by that logic, you could make any gun control law you want a ‘commercial regulation,’ even banning the sale of all firearms outright.”

Escalante said the organization would discuss its next steps with its legal team. Representatives for the Colorado attorney general’s office and Governor Jared Polis did not immediately return requests for comment.

Escalante makes a good point. The Tenth Circuit would probably decide that an outright ban on gun sales in the state would go too far, but if banning gun sales to young adults can be justified as a “commercial regulation”, what about gun sales to, say, adults over the age of 60 or 65? That’s the age group most likely to use a firearm to take their own life, and if Colorado’s argument about banning gun sales to young adults rests on their argument that under-21s are more likely to commit crimes with a gun, why wouldn’t a similar prohibition aimed at reducing gun-related suicides also be upheld? 

What about a ban on gun sales to Black residents of Colorado, who are statistically more likely to be arrested and sentenced for violent crimes than Hispanic, Native American, or white citizens? A law like that would be morally and constitutionally repugnant, but the rationale behind it would be little different than the one used by Colorado to block gun sales to all young adults. 

Even if young adults are more likely to commit gun-involved crimes, the vast majority of adults under the age of 21 will never do so. The same is true of senior citizens and gun-involved suicides, or Black gun owners and violent crime. In each of those cases it’s a small fraction of that demographic who will use a gun in a crime or an act of self-harm, and it makes no sense from either a constitutional or common sense standpoint to punish the many for the actions of the few. 

The Tenth Circuit’s ruling essentially takes us back to the bad old days when laws barring all Native Americans, freemen, and religious minorities from exercising their Second Amendment rights were in place. Anti-gunners want to use those laws as part of the “national tradition” of gun ownership in order to justify their current infringements, but those patently unconstitutional provisions should only serve as an example of what can’t be done to our rights… not a guidepost for appellate courts to slice and dice the Second Amendment into meaningless and unenforceable fragments.