A three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the federal statute banning 18-20-year-old adults from acquiring handguns from federally licensed firearms (FFL) dealers was unconstitutional.

“Today’s ruling is yet another critical FPC win against an immoral and unconstitutional age-based gun ban,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “We look forward to restoring the Second Amendment rights of all peaceable adults throughout the United States.”

The case, Reese v. ATF, was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and the Louisiana Shooting Association (LSA) against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The plaintiffs claim that the law violates the Second Amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14 Amendment. The ATF claimed that the law was constitutionally sound.

The judge ruled for the defense at the District Court level by citing the pre-Bruen NRA I case. In NRA I, where the Fifth Circuit upheld the age requirement of the law, but the court relied on intermediate scrutiny to come to its ruling. Since that case was decided, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Bruen decision that eliminated the court’s ability to use intermediate scrutiny in gun cases. The Fifth Circuit said the District Court erred in using the case.

“NRA I is incompatible with the Bruen and Rahimi decisions of the Supreme Court, and (2) these provisions are inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s contrary judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The ATF tried to argue that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue over the age-based law. The Circuit Court ruled that the plaintiffs did have standing. Under the Bruen test, if the conduct is protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment, then the conduct is presumably constitutional.

The government tried to argue that the Second Amendment only applied to those people over the age of 21. They used the fact that 21 was the age of majority during the founding era to justify the law. It was for most things, but most of the militia acts of the time designated any white male over the age of 18 as part of the militia, and by being part of the militia, they were responsible for supplying their own firearms.

The ATF did provide their own militia act laws from states like Virginia that set the minimum age at 21, but unfortunately for the ATF, all these laws were pre-founding, and all were amended to change the age of service to 18 before the ratification date of the Second Amendment. Because of the vast amount of evidence that the Second Amendment applied to 18-year-olds, the judges rejected the government’s claims. That meant the plaintiffs had standing, and the case moved to step two of the Bruen test.

The second step requires that the government provide historical analogues to show that the current law is consistent with the history and tradition of the nation’s firearms regulations. In Rahimi, the Supreme Court said that a historical law does not have to be a “historical twin” but must be similar to the law the government is defending. The ATF tried to reference laws that gave two universities the right to regulate the conduct of their students. The judges rejected this argument because the law was not based on age.

The ATF also tried to cite other Jim Crow-era laws from the Reconstruction period and tried to work their way back to the founding era, but the judges rejected these because they were too far removed from the founding era, and most had nothing to do with age. These laws were too different from the current law to be of any use.

The judges remanded the case back to the district court level to be decided within the scope of their ruling, meaning the plaintiffs would be successful.

About John Crump

Mr. Crump is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people from all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons, follow him on X at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.