An appeals court on Thursday upheld a federal law that prohibits people under the age of 21 from purchasing handguns from dealers, rejecting the first challenge to the age rule since the Supreme Court recognized an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.
In a 3-0 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the age restriction, which dates back to 1968, was “consistent with a longstanding tradition of targeting select groups’ ability to access and to use arms for the sake of public safety.”
The National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit challenging the ban in 2010, two years after the Supreme Court ruled in D.C. v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm. Eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds may possess and use handguns, receive them as gifts and buy them from private owners. But licensed firearm dealers are prohibited from selling such weapons to those under the age of 21.
Judge Edward Prado,
who authored the 41-page opinion, said the law had its roots in Foundering-Era restrictions on the possession of weapons by children, the mentally ill and loyalists.
“It appears that when the fledgling republic adopted the Second Amendment, an expectation of sensible gun safety
regulation was woven into the tapestry of the guarantee,” wrote Judge Prado, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
Fifth Circuit Upholds Ban on Gun Sales to People Under 21 - Law Blog - WSJ
