SCOTUS Really Should Side with SAF on Handgun Ban for Adults Under 21

Handguns are the most commonly used firearms for crime. Younger adults are the predominant parties that use those handguns for crime.

For anti-gunners, this seemed like an obvious thing. While most of them wanted to ban handguns entirely, it seemed like a good middle ground for them to just accept a handgun ban on adults under 21. After all, weren’t they the problem?

And a lot of people probably figured that since they could still buy long guns, they still had their Second Amendment rights, or enough of them, anyway.

Yes, all of that sounds incredibly stupid, but what do you expect from that bunch?

They did just that and guess what happened? That’s right. Criminals under 21 got handguns all the time, while the law-abiding younger adults couldn’t.

Now, the Second Amendment Foundation is taking its challenge to the Supreme Court.

In the latest chapter of the ongoing war, SAF and some partners recently filed a Petition of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to take up the case Brown v. ATF. ThatSAF case challenges the federal ban that prevents adults aged 18 to 20 from purchasing handguns from licensed dealers.

The organization’s petition highlights the circuit court split that has emerged on the issue in recent months. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law earlier this year in SAF’s Reese v. ATF case, while the 4th Circuit Court upheld it in Brown. Joining SAF in the case are the West Virginia Citizens Defense League and a private citizen, Alec La Neve.

As the petition noted: “The Second Amendment…reflects the sacred national value that part of what it means to be an American is to enjoy the right to defend yourself, your family, and your community with common firearms. By preventing an entire class of Americans—law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds—from acquiring handguns on the commercial market cuts to the very heart of this fundamental American value.”

Some have argued that since the age of majority in the time of the Founding was 21, then the ban is perfectly acceptable.

My counter to that is that if we’re going to prohibit these people from owning guns because of that standard, then we should prohibit them from enlisting, from signing contracts, and the like. We should also rethink that whole 26th Amendment thing, too. 

The truth of the matter is that the age of majority today is 18. We don’t blink at treating 18-year-olds as adults in any other way. They’re sentenced for all crimes as adults. They rent their own homes. They buy cars and register them in their names. They engage in all manners of business as adults because they are.

So this idea that they should be prohibited from exercising all or part of their Second Amendment rights because of their age is asinine.

In fact, I’d love to see the Supreme Court not just side with the SAF on handguns, but in total, thus killing long gun prohibitions for adults under 21 in the process.

It’s unlikely to happen, mostly as the Court has a tendency to avoid particularly broad rulings, as a general thing, but I can’t rule it out, either.

I didn’t expect Bruen to be quite as broad as it ended up being, either.