After the release of an Office of Legal Counsel opinion that determined the federal ban on commercial handgun sales to young adults is unconstitutional, the Department of Justice says it will no longer enforce that statute. Nearly 200 House Democrats, along with their allies in the gun control lobby, are denouncing the decision and demanding Attorney General Todd Blanche reverse course.
In a letter to Blanche, Rep. Mike Thompson, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Rep. Lucy McBath, and dozens of other Democrats claim the DOJ's decision "will make our communities, and especially our schools less safe."
“It is outrageous that DOJ would unilaterally overturn the law and allow an 18-year-old high school student to buy a handgun, buy a silencer, and have them shipped to their house without ever leaving their basement. That is just wrong.”
And that won't happen, at least not at the moment. The ATF is proposing a rule that would allow for "Non Over-the-Counter" sales, but the rule has not been formally adopted and, in fact, has received considerable pushback from brick-and-mortar FFLs who are concerned about the potential loss of business. Even if the rule is adopted, those sales would require an in-person video conference with the FFL selling the firearm, as well as ID verification from a third party like ID.me.
Silencers can also already be shipped directly to a buyer using a Form 4, but I'd say the vast majority of non-gun owners are unaware of that, so Thompson's quote sounds particularly scary to them.
The letter is full of similarly deceptive arguments. The Democrats write, for instance, that "[m]illions of Americans remember when a 20-year-old gunman in Newtown, Connecticut killed 27 people, overwhelmingly children, in the deadliest elementary school massacre in American history."
The 20-year-old in question was old enough to legally purchase the rifle used in the attack, but he instead stole the rifle from his mother and murdered her before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary School to carry out his cowardly killing spree. Adults 18 and older can already purchase long guns under federal law. The Gun Control Act of 1968 forbids them from purchasing handguns, and the OLC's opinion that the statute violates the Second Amendment follows several court decisions that have also concluded 18-to-20-year-olds are fully vested with their Second Amendment rights.
To be fair, we've also seen some court decisions to the contrary. The Supreme Court could have addressed those circuit court splits this term, but instead denied cert to nearly a half-dozen cases dealing with the Second Amendment rights of young adults earlier this year.
The letter also claims "[y]oung adults engage in crime at a higher rate than the rest of the adult population and lowering the age to purchase a handgun would make an even larger percentage of youths vulnerable to coercion or cooption by traffickers."
We're not talking about "youth." We're talking about young adults, who, incidentally, are not prohibited by federal law from acquiring a handgun in a private sale or a gift. It's only a retail sale of a handgun that's blocked by the Gun Control Act.
I suppose it's possible that not enforcing the federal statute could lead to more adults under the age of 21 coerced into or willingly working with gun traffickers, but a) that would be a really bad idea since they'll be charged as adults if caught and b) we're already seeing actual juveniles trafficking firearms through theft and black market acquisitions.
It's also true that young adults have higher violent crime rates than older Americans, but the vast majority of 18-to-20-year-olds will never be accused of a crime at all. Prohibiting every young adult from purchasing a firearm at a gun shop because of the actions of a small number of their peers isn't common sense. As the OLC says, it's unconstitutional.
I highly doubt this letter is going to cause Attorney General Blanche to rescind the directive not to prosecute violations of this statute, but it is a pretty clear signal that this opinion is going to be overwritten the next time an anti-gun Democrat is in charge of the DOJ. That's why it's critically important for the Supreme Court to address this issue at the earliest opportunity, and it's incredibly frustrating that the Court declined to do so just a few months ago.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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