Authored by Jonathan Turley,
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has issued a major ruling on the Second Amendment, declaring that federal prohibitions on gun sales to adults between the ages of 18-20 are unconstitutional. The case is Reese v. ATF. For gun rights advocates, it may have been better if this decision had been handed down during the Biden Administration. The Trump Administration will likely support the ruling and might not appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case concerns 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1), and related regulations, including 27 C.F.R. §§ 478.99(b), 478.124(a), and 478.96(b). These provisions are the basis for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to bar Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) from selling or delivering handguns to adults under the age of twenty-one.
Writing for the panel (with Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee. and Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, a George H.W. Bush appointee), Judge Edith Hollan Jones relied on the 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen to find that the prohibition was not grounded in the historical tradition of the amendment:
Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to- twenty-year-old individuals among “the people” whose right to keep and bear arms is protected.