A group of 20 Democrat senators are pressing the Department of Justice to continue enforcing a federal law banning commercial handgun sales to adults younger than 21, despite an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel that the statute violates the Second Amendment.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand spearheaded the letter, arguing that "the Trump administration should be doing more to keep guns out of the wrong hands – not less,” and adding that "refusing to enforce the law that bars dealers from selling handguns to teenagers makes our communities less safe and is a direct surrender to the gun lobby at the expense of American lives.”
Federal courts are currently split on the constitutionality of the prohibition, with some courts adopting the idea that we are fully vested with our Second Amendment rights once we reach adulthood. Others, though, contend that since 21 was the age of majority in 1791, at least when it came to entering into contracts, a 20-year-old today can still be considered a "minor" in terms of their right to keep and bear arms.
There are some painfully obvious flaws to that argument, including the fact that any 18-to-20-year-old caught illegally possessing a firearm is going to be charged as an adult, not a minor, but for the time being the Supreme Court has chosen not to address or resolve the circuit court split on the issue.
Gillibrand and her fellow Democrats argue that young adults are more likely commit violent crimes than older Americans, and say "the public safety implications of this decision are clear."
Numerous mass shootings have been committed by perpetrators between the ages of 18 and 20, including the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old fatally shot 19 students and two teachers and injured 18 others, as well as the shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York; an Indianapolis FedEx facility and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. These tragic examples underscore the public safety considerations at stake and the serious risks Congress sought to address.”
Since those murders were all committed by under-21s using rifles, Gillibrand and the other co-signers presumably want to ban under-21s from possessing or purchasing any firearm, not just handguns.
Even if it is true that young adults are more likely to commit violent crimes than other age groups, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of under-21s will never commit a violent crime of any kind. If we can prohibit that age group from purchasing handguns because they disproportionally commit violent crimes, could we also ban adults 55 and older from purchasing handguns because they disproportionately use those firearms to take their own lives?
If Gillibrand doesn't believe that's the case, I'd like to know why. Suicides account for about 2/3rds of all deaths involving firearms, so from a public safety perspective a ban on older Americans purchasing handguns would have an even bigger impact than banning young adults from buying pistols.
The answer is simple, but it also implicates the gun ban that Gillibrand and other Democrats want to keep in place: we don't strip an entire class of people of their Second Amendment rights because of the criminal actions of a few members of that class.
We don't do that with the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, or any other constitutional right, and there's no reason why the Second Amendment should be treated differently.
Gillibrand and her colleagues are free to argue that 18-to-20-year-olds shouldn't be trusted with handguns, but that doesn't make those young adults children or erase their constitutional rights. They're old enough to vote, serve in the military, enter into contracts, get married, and be held fully accountable for their actions under the criminal justice system. Yet according to these senators, they're still too young to exercise the same right to armed self-defense enjoyed by every other adult.
The senators are also free to disagree with the Office of Legal Counsel's constitutional analysis. But accusing the DOJ of surrendering to the gun lobby simply because it refuses to enforce a law it has concluded is unconstitutional turns the government's obligations upside down.
The Justice Department's job isn't to enforce every law that Kirsten Gillibrand happens to like. It's to uphold the Constitution, and that's exactly what the OLC opinion does.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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