Citing a split between the 5th and 11th Circuit Courts of Appeals, the NRA is asking the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to intervene over laws barring 18-20 year-olds from gun purchases.
CBS News reported that the NRA referred to the decisions from the split circuits as “intolerable” on Friday and asked SCOTUS to step in.
On January 30, 2025, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that had upheld a ban on handgun purchases by 18- to 20-year-olds.
Judge Edith Hollan Jones wrote the majority opinion which said, in part:
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.
The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban, and its 19th century evidence cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence.
On March 11, 2025, the United State Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida’s ban on 18-20 year-olds buying guns. The 11th circuit’s decision was handed down on an 8-4 vote.
The NRA first filed suit against Florida’s gun purchase ban for 18-20 year-olds in 2021 and now seeks action from the highest court in the land.
NRA-ILA executive director John Commerford said: “Americans 18 years of age and older are considered adults who can vote, enter into contracts, marry, and enlist and fight for our country. Those same adults are also guaranteed the right to defend themselves through the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The NRA is asking the Supreme Court to take up this critical case to safeguard the constitutional rights of adults under 21.”
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