Federal law says adults under 21 can’t purchase a handgun. Purchase.
That’s a key word, because they can own handguns without an issue. They just can’t purchase them for themselves. While I disagree with this prohibition, to say the least, the fact that they can still own them means that, at a minimum, they should be able to carry them. I mean, it’s the right to keep and bear arms, right?
Unfortunately, a lot of states will not issue permits to adults under 21. Pennsylvania is one of them.
For now.
That law is currently being challenged, and the Second Amendment Foundation, along with the National Rifle Association and the Firearms Owners Against Crime, filed an amicus brief in the case.
From a press release:
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners filed an amicus brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court challenging the state’s firearms carry ban by 18–20-year-olds.
The brief was filed in support of the appellant in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Kareem Mohammed Williams Jr., and challenges the state’s prohibition of law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds carrying firearms for self-defense. SAF joined the National Rifle Association and Firearm Owners Against Crime in the amicus filing.
“Pennsylvania’s ban defies Bruen by denying young adults their Second Amendment rights without any historical tradition of such age-based restrictions at the Founding,” said SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros. “History shows that 18-to-20-year-olds were not only part of ‘the People’ protected by the Second Amendment but were required to keep and bear arms for militia and self-defense purposes. We urge the Court to reverse the lower court ruling and recognize that this subset of adults is afforded the same fundamental right to self-defense as other Americans who are 21 and older.”
The case affects thousands of peaceable adults under 21-years-old in Pennsylvania who are barred from exercising their right to carry arms for protection, despite clear historical evidence such bans lack Founding-era support. SAF is currently challenging the same core issue in Paris v. Second Amendment Foundation, which is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“SAF has made protecting the rights of young adults a priority in a number of cases, and this amicus brief helps further that objective,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “SAF is proud to join the other amicus parties in this effort to ensure that Pennsylvania may not continue to strip law-abiding citizens of their constitutional protections.”
These are adults who are trusted by our military with far greater firepower than is available to civilians. That includes high explosives, heavy artillery, and firing tank guns, but they can’t be trusted to exercise the totality of their civil liberties under the Constitutional protections of those rights? Seriously?
“But their frontal lobes haven’t fully developed, and they’re more likely to be impulsive!” someone will say, because that’s the argument, isn’t it?
However, let’s also keep in mind that no one is suggesting they’re too impulsive to be permitted to vote, to be permitted to get married, to sign contracts that puts them in a lifetime of crippling debt, or anything else. They’re totally allowed to screw up their lives in every other way imaginable, but they can’t defend it.
“Tom, please. Not every adult under 21 is doing stuff like that. We shouldn’t treat them like children because a few are irresponsible.”
Isn’t that the reason for these restrictions, though? Isn’t that just the same thing?
I could tolerate these kinds of laws if they didn’t treat adults under 21 as adults on almost every other thing under the law. They can’t drink or hold certain offices, and that’s about it beyond gun rights.
So yeah, the prohibition on them carrying guns in Pennsylvania is stupid. Unfortunately, the only way to change it is through the courts, so here’s hoping this gets resolved, either by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court, though a decision by the latter would settle the matter everywhere.
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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