A federal court has thrown out Pennsylvania’s law banning young adults ages 18 to 20 years old from carrying firearms during a declared emergency.
On Jan. 18, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, based in Philadelphia, by a 2-to-1 vote ruled the ban to be unconstitutional under the new standards prescribed by the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in Bruen.
“We understand that a reasonable debate can be had over allowing young adults to be armed, but the issue before us is a narrow one,” U.S. Circuit Court Judge Kent A. Jordan wrote in the majority opinion. “Our question is whether the (state police) commissioner has borne his burden of proving that evidence of founding-era regulations supports Pennsylvania’s restriction on 18-to-20-year-olds’ Second Amendment rights, and the answer to that is no.”
The case was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) on behalf of plaintiffs aged 18 to 20.
“We applaud the 3rd Circuit’s decision in this case confirming that 18-to-20-year-old adults have the same right to armed self-defense as any other adult,” Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s vice president and general counsel, said in a released statement. “If it wasn’t for 18-to-20-year-old adults being empowered to exercise their right to defend themselves, their loved ones and their communities, our nation wouldn’t exist—it would be a deep perversion of the Constitution to prevent them the same right.”
Of course, it is common knowledge that all adults 18 and above were part of the “militia” during the Founding era and not only had the right to bear arms, but were encouraged to do so. But Judge L. Felipe Restrepo, a Joe Biden appointee and the only “no” vote on the panel, must have missed that semester in history class.
“A review of historical sources reveals that the Second Amendment’s plain text does not cover Appellants’ conduct because it would have been understood during the Founding era that Appellants are not ‘part of ‘the people’ whom the Second Amendment protects.’” Judge Restrepo wrote in his dissent. “Further, the challenged statutory scheme here is ‘consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition.’ Because Pennsylvania’s statutory scheme does not violate the Second Amendment of the Constitution, I respectfully dissent.”
Unjust laws targeting young adults, who in many states have all of their rights recognized except their Second Amendment right, have been taking a beating in court of late. Just last December in the case Brown v. ATF, Judge Thomas S. Klesh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia declared that state’s law banning handgun sales to 18- to 20-year-olds to be unconstitutional and granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.
“The core issue the Court must answer under Bruen remains whether our nation’s history and tradition contains ‘analogous’ restrictions on the ability of 18- to 20-year-olds to purchase firearms,” Judge Klesh wrote in the ruling. “Defendants have not presented any evidence of age-based restrictions on the purchase or sale of firearms from before or at the Founding or during the Early Republic. Defendants have likewise failed to offer evidence of similar regulation between then and 1791 or in a relevant timeframe thereafter. For that reason alone, Defendants have failed to meet the burden imposed by Bruen.”
So, the dissenting Judge is going down the path of defining the term “The People” which all other judges refuse to touch with a proverbial 10-foot pole. That won’t end well for Far Left Pr0gre$$ives.
Outside of that, how is it that everything else in Common Law and the U.S. Constitution (which includes the Bill of Rights) applies to adults age 18 to 20 years and yet the Second Amendment does not?
I would have had more respect for the dissenting Judge if he would have come right out and said, “I owe it to my political party to deny our unalienable right to effective self-defense therefore I rule that adults age 18 to 20 have no such right.”
Allow me to point out that, with rights come obligations and responsibilities. The obverse, of course, is that with obligations and responsibilities, come rights. You can’t separate them.
The vast majority of active duty military are people between the ages of 18 and ohhhh – let’s say 25. Anyone trustworthy enough to carry weapons abroad and on our military bases is presumed to be responsible. Stop screwing with the rights of our servicemen and women!
The Army bowed to the marxist progs RE; 2nd decades ago. On post any firearms required to be locked up in a company arms room can only withdraw for sporting use. Individual weapons in racks in the barracks (as old time newsreels/movies) went away many decades ago. All are triple locked in company arms rooms (with minimal/no ammunition available). General officer rank became totally risk adverse on the subject of guns many many years ago.
I wonder how much the movie Full Metal Jacket played a roll in those decisions.
except for the night a duece and a half showed up after the arms room was closed…they dumped about a hundred M-16’s and a “60” on us [base security]…and just drove away…made for a very tense night as we worried about a set-up….
neiowa:
That was already true SIX decades ago when I was in basic training and electronics school with the USAF. I can remember one night in the barracks at Keesler AFB when they came through and shook down the whole outfit for weapons. Whether they found any or not, I cannot say.
PA house just introduced a slew of new gun control bills…heads up….
“PA house just introduced a slew of new gun control bills…heads up….”
Of course, there is no judicial penalty for legislators passing unconstitutional laws, or defying court decisions.
So, the progtards are pushing for a lower voting age (16yo), yet 18yo isn’t old enough to carry a firearm???
Hypocrisy, thy party is Democrat!
That’s the quickest way to cool their jets on age 16 voting, just remind them that also means armed carry at 16 years…
Here in Los Angeles County, 18-20 year olds are prohibited from carrying at all. We have no open carry, and LASD explicitly bans CCWs for anyone under 21. So the net effect is the deprivation of constitutional rights, even though the CA State Constitution clearly says (Art 3, Sec 1) that the State recognizes the Federal USC as the “Supreme Law of the Land.”
Violations to our rights everywhere here.
A victory for the good guys and the BRUEN decison.
Sad to say it took Bruen and a Black USSC Justice to crack open the History books enough to expose Gun Control for what it was centuries ago and continues to be. Gun Control ignorance is what happens when Gun Control History illiteracy runs rampant in America. With Bruen one would suspect Gun Owners to be out front on point Defining Gun Control by its History. Unfortunately some Gun Owners are closet bigots and their silence and contentment on the race based atrocities inherent with Gun Control tells the tale…you know who you are.
what if you want those you are bigoted against to be able to defend themselves?
Don’t force her to think, it could be traumatizing to her… 🙂
ai ai, cap’n.
methinks the trauma’s been did.
Making up classes of people to deny their rights is consistent with Democrat’s identity politics. It used to be blacks, Indians, Catholics, now it’s “young adults”. Next up, any person too old to participate in the militia, then maybe females, then we loop right back to blacks, Indians, Catholics, whites, etc ad nauseum.
How ’bout we just hold the line at the criminally violent, and the mentally deficient? Roll back that whole felon and convict thing, and leave it at criminally violent. All Americans have to right to bear arms, unless and until they demonstrate that they cannot be trusted with arms, on an individual basis. You know, that oft-forgotten “due process” thing.
Anything else is racism, sexism, classism, or some other ism.
15 and 16 yr olds running around out there with them anyway….what’s the point?
Where are the court challenges under Bruen to the Unconstitutional NFA and GCA?
This nibbling around the edges re. the new prog BS laws/regs if fine as an appetizer, but get to the main course smackdown. The “long game”/incrementalism was ok as a tactic for decades until we got Bruen. Now get out the “big stick”. SOMEONE.
The uniparty, including the judges, love it this way. Milquetoast rulings to throw a bone here and there but stalling long enough to give the other side of the uniparty an opportunity to roll any changes back.
Always spinning wheels and never going anywhere.
Neither really wants any of us free. If we breathe too easily they cut the airflow. If we gasp too much they let a bit more air trickle in. It’ll just keep on going like this.
plenty of gun control “trickling in” under republican administrations…they’re more reactive than proactive…but it still happens….
“Where are the court challenges under Bruen to the Unconstitutional NFA and GCA?”
The mental gears are turning among the various gun rights organizations’ legal teams on the NFA.
I’d rather they did that work carefully, and not carelessly.
The $200 tax is ripe for repeal (no poll taxes), and so is getting the slave states those kind of ‘goodies’.
Outright repeal isn’t gonna happen, if you bothered to read Scalia’s ‘Heller’ decision, he recognized some weapons could be regulated.
And, do you seriously want a nutjob trans-angry whatever to just walk in a gun store and walk out with a select-fire weapon?
And, do you seriously want a nutjob trans-angry whatever to just walk in a gun store and walk out with a select-fire weapon?
I want them and everyone to be able to mail-order, buy storefront anything they can afford to. If the individual is too dangerous to trust with that he/she/it needs to be locked away from society.
Ban homicidal nutjobs not guns.
Ideally yes absolutely. Realistically will need to take incremental steps to get there.
the NFA is cluttered with things that don’t belong there…even some in the ATF agree…that purge was beginning to happen until 2020 arrived and put on the brakes…
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-simple-truth-about-guns-our-rights/
This is the path to ending the NFA and potentially preempting most of these Bruen usurping laws the lefties are crafting.
Let the appeals music play, and everyone must dance.
The anti-gun goons building is crumbling one brick at a time and they can’t fix it. After Bruen and Heller although Bruen simply clarified what was in Heller, it took courts a while to embrace the meaning and understand that interest balancing is over. Slowly and surely inferior courts are recognizing the writing on the wall and laws which violate our rights are getting permanently shelved.
But they really aren’t. Sure, a judge someplace issues an injection, but the law is still on the books resulting in “freedom week” until the next judge issues a stay until it is adjudicated. then appeal. Rinse and repeat until the SCOTUS makeup is changed and we have no 2A.
Our gun rights are only safe as long as they don’t control the SCotUS.
Once that happens, ‘Heller’ gets overturned… 🙁
Trump’s greatest accomplishment was altering that court…
The wheels of justice turn very slowly. The problem the antis face is the constitution. It’s going to be a long long time, if ever that Bruen is reversed.
At the current time, the blue states and Demonrats don’t have anything else.
[Gavin Newsom has entered the chat]
passing seemingly endless and often ridiculous restrictions seems to be their current strategy….it’s a delaying action on a massive scale….
@frank speak
‘Trump’s greatest accomplishment was altering that court…”
IIRC, Trump only recommended changes. The Senate made it happen.
The President appoints Supreme Court justices “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Art II, Sec 2.
“The President appoints Supreme Court justices “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Art II, Sec 2.”
Without Senate “consent” (“confirmation”), appointments are worthless. Thus……
Yay Judges.
It’s a good thing the Constitution has judges that support it.
Safe
“But Judge L. Felipe Restrepo, a Joe Biden appointee and the only “no” vote on the panel, must have missed that semester in history class.”
I know this was written tongue in cheek, but we have to stop even giving them this little bit of cover. Call them out for what they are. Judicial tyrants, making rulings based on their personal feelings and damn the law, precedent, or Constitution.
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