Victory For Gun Owners

A federal judge in Texas revoked the state’s ban on handguns for people between the ages of 18 and 20. This is the first major judicial decision to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June.

The Firearms Policy Coalition, first filed against the ban which stopped young adults who were not in active military service from having the ban was first filed in 2021. At the time, the group had said that this ban was against the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which allowed people to carry arms.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that as per the Second Amendment people are allowed to carry weapons in public as self- defense. Based on this decision, deferral judges are only allowed “history-only” tests in order to decide on firearms regulations. They also said that regulations would be constitutional only if they were similar to those that existed when the Second Amendment was first ratified.

Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas also ruled that there was no precedent for young adults to not be allowed to carry firearms in public. He also cited the Supreme Court ruling as evidence of this.

The Judge has allowed for 30 days for Texas to be able to appeal the decision if they want to.

Lawyers from the Texas attorney general’s office have maintained that there is a historic tradition of firearms being limited based on age.

The age restriction currently only concerned handguns and had no effect on long gun regulations which could be purchased by people older than 18. This was the case of the Uvalde, Texas school shooting where an 18-year-old with a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two teachers.