Pennsylvania Gets Major Setback Over Effort to Keep Adults Under 21 Disarmed

For some reason, there is a sizeable group of people in this country who think that adults under 21 are too immature to exercise all of their constitutionally protected rights while also thinking that 16-year-olds are totally mature enough to vote. It’s kind of funny; or it would be if it wasn’t so sad.

How those rights get restricted for adults under 21 depends on the state. 

At the federal level, they’re all barred from buying handguns. In many states, though, they also can’t buy so-called assault weapons while others prevent them from buying any long gun. Still others restrict them from being able to carry a gun lawfully, either in spite so having permitless carry or in denying them permits.

One state that does the latter is Pennsylvania, and they’ve found themselves in court trying to defend the practice. It hasn’t gone well for them lately, and the latest decision from the Third Circuit isn’t changing their luck.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has denied Pennsylvania’s petition for an en banc hearing over a challenge to a Commonwealth law banning the carrying of firearms by 18 to 20-year-old residents of the Key Stone State during a declared emergency.

The order denying the request reads: “The petition for rehearing filed by appellant in the above-entitled case having been submitted to the judges who participated in the decision of this Court and to all the other available circuit judges of the circuit in regular active service, and no judge who concurred in the decision having asked for rehearing, and a majority of the judges of the circuit in regular service not having voted for rehearing, the petition for rehearing by the panel and the Court en banc, is denied. Judge Restrepo, Judge Shwartz, Judge Krause, Judge Montgomery-Reeves, and Judge Chung voted to grant the petition for rehearing. Judge Krause would have granted rehearing and files the attached dissent sur denial of rehearing en banc.”

The Commonwealth sought an en banc review of Lara v. Paris. An en banc review means the three-judge panel’s decision would be vacated, and the whole bench would hear the case. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) brought the case to challenge the Keystone State’s gun law that tried to deprive those under 21 of their Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms during a declared state of emergency. Pennsylvania tried to argue that “the people” referred to those over 21 and those under that age do not have gun rights.

This is a significant win for gun rights. The next step would be for Pennsylvania to take its appeal to the Supreme Court. Even then, there’s no guarantee that SCOTUS will hear the case. If they don’t, the ruling stands and the state is slap out of luck.

For gun control advocates, though, that might be their best-case scenario right now.

As it stands, this ruling impacts Pennsylvania significantly, but if the Supreme Court hears the case, there’s a very good chance that they’ll smack down not just this law but age restrictions that impact legal adults under 21 across the nation. I’m not just talking about carry restrictions, either. This could kill the federal prohibition on handgun sales to adults under 21, too.

If the state’s attorneys recognize this, they may opt to just let it lie, issue permits to anyone eligible aged 18 and up, and soldier on like nothing happened.

Or, they may be so convinced of their own case’s righteousness that they push forward.

It’ll be interesting to see where this ends up going.