A U.S. appeals court has struck down the federal ban on licensed gun dealers selling handguns to people between the ages of 18 and 20. The decision comes after two other circuit courts ruled against age restrictions in recent months, significantly raising the chances that the Supreme Court will weigh in, legal experts say.
On January 30, a panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that 18- to 20-year-olds are protected by the Second Amendment, and the ban on them purchasing handguns violates their rights.
Judge Edith H. Jones, a President Ronald Reagan appointee who authored the court’s opinion, pointed to the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which said that modern-day gun laws must be similar to gun restrictions in early American history.
“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,” she wrote.
The decision is the latest in a string of divergent opinions on gun-related age restrictions. Legal experts say the Supreme Court tends to step in and take cases when appeals courts disagree, as such splits can lead to federal laws being inconsistently applied around the country.
“This issue is definitely making its way to the Supreme Court — and fast,” Jacob Charles, a Second Amendment law professor at Pepperdine Law School, wrote on Bluesky. “This is a key federal law and you just can’t have that apply differently across the nation (at least for long).”
The Trace has compiled data on more than 1,600 federal court challenges to gun laws since 2022. It shows that more than a dozen federal district courts have considered age restriction cases, and they, too, have split.
Gun dealers have been prohibited from selling handguns to people under 21 since Congress passed the Gun Control Act in 1968. Under federal law, it’s not illegal for that age group to possess or use handguns, or to buy them from friends or family, or in other so-called private transactions. Some states have stricter laws that prohibit all sales or possession for those under 21.
Two other circuit courts have found age restrictions unconstitutional in the past year. The 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania restriction on 18- to 20-year-olds carrying guns in public during a state of emergency, and an 8th Circuit panel invalidated a ban on the same age group carrying guns in Minnesota. A petition for the Supreme Court to take up the Minnesota case is pending.
But in 2023, a three-judge 11th Circuit panel upheld a Florida ban on gun sales to those under 21 in a case brought by the National Rifle Association. The full court decided to reconsider the case and heard oral arguments in October. Its ruling is expected in the coming months. Similarly, a 10th Circuit panel backed Colorado’s age restriction law in November.
On the same day as the 5th Circuit’s ruling, the 4th Circuit heard oral arguments in two age restriction cases from Virginia.
Andrew Willinger, a legal expert at the Duke University Center for Firearms Law, said the Virginia cases are two to watch. “A circuit split would make it more likely for this specific issue to go up to the Supreme Court,” Willinger said. “And I think the panel there, if I had to guess, may uphold the law.”
The conservative 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction has issued several pro-gun rights decisions in recent years, including in United States v. Rahimi, which the Supreme Court reversed last year. The circuit’s jurisdiction covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, but it was not immediately clear whether the January 30 decision would affect the enforcement of age restrictions in those states. The federal district court that originally heard the case could issue an injunction blocking enforcement, or it could hold off pending appeal.
But Dru Stevenson, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, said that regardless of the district court’s action, if dealers decide to start selling to 18- to 20-year-olds, it may be difficult to stop them.
“Who’s gonna prosecute sales that happen in the few weeks before we get a district court order? Probably no one,” Stevenson said. “The argument will be that if the 5th Circuit has said that the law was unconstitutional to start with, then it would be unconstitutional to prosecute.”
A Trace investigation last year found that a secret multi-million dollar operation was funding many cases brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, a plaintiff in the 5th Circuit case. The group hailed the January 30 decision as an “important victory.”
“We have always maintained that young adults, who can vote, join the military, get married, enter into contracts and even run for office can also enjoy the full rights of citizenship which includes rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment,” the group’s founder, Alan Gottlieb, said in a statement. “If we can trust young adults to defend our country, we can certainly trust them to own any and all legal firearms.”
Despite the federal age restriction, people between the ages of 18 and 21 suffer more fatal shootings per capita than any other age group.
Project Unloaded, a gun violence prevention group that aims to discourage gun use among teenagers, panned the decision. Nina Vinik, the group’s founder and president, said the ruling was an invitation for the gun industry to market guns to young people.
“Gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens in the US,” Vinik said in a statement. “Yet our justice system is making it harder to keep young people safe.”