10th Circuit Rules Colorado Under-21 Gun Purchase Ban Constitutional

Over the past year, it seemed that young gun owners aged 18 to 20 were building some momentum in getting their Second Amendment rights recognized. In April, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that 18- to 20-year-old residents could apply for concealed carry permits, and in July, the 8^th Circuit Court ruled that Minnesota’s carry ban on young adults under 21 was unconstitutional.

Now, however, the tide seems to be turning. On Tuesday, the Denver-based 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis that Colorado’s law limiting gun sales to people 21 or over could take effect. The law had been on hold since last year when a federal district judge blocked enforcement of the law the day it was set to take effect.

Using what can only be described as faulty logic, the three-judge panel of the 10^th Circuit based the ruling on the fact that other states have similar laws, the constitution be damned. It’s like a teenager telling his parents he can smoke pot, despite it being illegal, because all of his friends are doing it.

Noting that 20 other states set the gun purchase age at 21, Judge Richard Federico wrote in the ruling: “It seems evident that the necessity of some minimum age requirement is widely accepted—after all, no one is reasonably arguing that 8-year-olds should be allowed to purchase guns.”

In the majority opinion, Federico cites “compelling scientific evidence” presented by the state that the brain continues to mature until age 21—a factor that should not even be considered. Federico further wrote that plaintiff Adrian Pineda failed to prove that the law violated the Second Amendment.

“Pineda fails to prove that SB 23-169 implicates his right to ‘keep and bear’ arms…,” Federico wrote. “This is because SB 23-169 is presumptively lawful as a law that imposes conditions or qualifications upon the sale and purchase of arms and thus does not fall within the protections of the plain text of the Second Amendment. Laws or regulations imposing conditions or qualifications—such as a minimum purchase age of 21—on the commercial sale or purchase of arms, when not employed for abusive ends, remain outside the scope of the Amendment’s protections under the third prong of Bruen step one.”

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, one of the plaintiffs in the case, plans to appeal the decision, which they say ignored many of the guidelines set down in the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

“The judges refused to properly apply Bruen‘s text, history, and tradition standard, and instead recharacterized this law into a mere commercial regulation instead of a constitutional right infringement,” the group posted on X, formerly Twitter. “This is a very temporary setback, and we look forward to fighting back against this outrageous ruling.”