The push to block adults under the age of 21 from accessing their right to keep and bear arms is playing out in courtrooms and statehouses across the country, and now Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is renewing the fight on Capitol Hill as well.
On Thursday, Massie announced the re-introduction of the SAFER Act, which would recognize the right of under-21s to purchase a handgun at retail.
I just reintroduced the Second Amendment for Every Registrable Voter Act, HR 1643. The SAFER Voter Act would repeal the federal law that prevents voting age adults, 18 to 20, from purchasing a handgun from a FFL.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 27, 2025
Why should a 20-yr-old mom be denied the right to defend herself? pic.twitter.com/45yvIunfQ7
Now, technically a 20-year-old mom isn't denied the right to defend herself. Under federal law, she's free and clear to purchase a rifle or shotgun from her neighborhood gun store. She can even buy a handgun from a private seller without running afoul of the DOJ or ATF. It's only if she attempts to purchase a pistol from a federally licensed firearm dealer that she'll run into a roadblock; one that would be cleared away by Massie's legislation.
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) February 27, 2025
FPC's challenge to the federal prohibition on retail handgun sales to adults under the age of 21 is just one of multiple efforts to put young adults on the same legal footing as their elders when it comes to exercising their Second Amendment rights, and a majority of these challenges have met with at least some success. In addition to the Fifth Circuit's decision handed down last month, federal judges in both West Virginia and Virginia have ruled determined that our 2A rights are fully vested at the age of 18, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Minnesota's ban on concealed carry for under-21s violates the Second Amendment as well.
That doesn't mean the debate is over, unfortunately. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the West Virginia and Virginia cases last month, and unlike the Fifth Circuit, there are signs that the appellate court will uphold the gun law in question .
U.S. Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson III, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said it appeared to be a narrowly tailored restriction intended to prevent an impulsive young person from purchasing a handgun to seek vengeance.
“They are a common feature of American law, and they always have been,” the judge said, referring to age-based restrictions.
[The plaintiffs' attorneys] argued that the laws at the time of the nation’s founding were most critical to determining the constitutionality of the handgun regulation. At the time, the colonial militias required soldiers, some 16 or younger, to furnish their own firearms, which, it stands to reason, they could purchase.
U.S. Circuit Judge Toby Heytens, a Joe Biden appointee, pointed out that such an argument, taken to its logical conclusion, would lead to a constitutional right for 16-year-olds to purchase handguns, which was "patently bananas."
Well, no, that's not where that argument would lead. If so, we would have already seen the Fifth Circuit declare that 16-year-olds have the right to buy a pistol.
Instead, what the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have reasonably concluded is that since the right to keep and bear arms is a right of "the people", which the Supreme Court has indicated applies to the entire political community, 18-year-olds are fully vested with the right to possess and carry a gun along with their right to speak freely, to worship as they choose, to petition their government for a redress of their grievances, and every other enumerated right protected by the Constitution.
Some colonial or state militias may have required service starting at the age of 16, but we already know that the Second Amendment encompasses gun ownership outside of a militia context. That wasn't even the primary argument deployed by the attorneys representing young adults in the Fourth Circuit case, who pointed out that 18-year-olds can exercise every other enumerated right in the Constitution without question. If the Second Amendment is treated differently, then the Fourth Circuit will inevitably be treating it as a second-class right, which the Supreme Court has already warned is unacceptable and unfeasible.
Massie's SAFER Act would moot these court challenges if its enacted into law, but even if the House adopts his measure it faces an uphill fight in the Senate. Still, his bill is a welcome addition to the ongoing debate about under-21s and the Second Amendment, and it should enjoy the support of every 2A supporter in the U.S. House.
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