Appeals Court Strikes Down Federal Ban on Handgun Sales to Teenagers

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s “historical tradition” test.

A conservative appeals court ruled Thursday that a longstanding federal ban on handgun sales to people between the ages of 18 and 20 violates the Second Amendment, pushing the question of age limits for handguns one step closer to the Supreme Court.

In a 29-page opinion written by Judge Edith H. Jones, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans concluded that the Constitution “includes 18- to 20-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” and that a federal law criminalizing the sale of handguns to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds was therefore unconstitutional.

The ruling overturned gun control laws and regulations that date back to 1968.

In 2022, after 19 children and 12 adults died at the hands of two 18-year-olds armed with military-style rifles in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, the House passed a bill that would have banned licensed gun dealers from selling any firearm to teenagers, trying to align the sale of long guns with the age restrictions on handguns. But that provision was rejected by the Senate.

Now the courts are moving in the other direction, though it was not immediately clear on Thursday how the Fifth Circuit ruling would affect gun sales nationally or in the southern states covered by the appellate court.

The three-judge panel in Louisiana rejected the government’s arguments that firearm sales to this age group had been restricted in similar ways in 18th- and 19th-century America. It cited instead the Militia Act of 1792, which required “every free able-bodied white male” between the ages of 18 and 45 to join his state militia and furnish his own musket or rifle.