On Thursday, a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the prohibition against handgun sales to adults under the age of 21 was unconstitutional.

To call this a big win is putting it mildly. This prohibition, coupled with the growing push to ban this same age group from buying long guns, is a blatant infringement on the right of legal adults' right to keep and bear arms.

After all, if you can't buy guns, it doesn't really matter if you have a technical right to own them. For all intents and purposes, your right to keep and bear arms is non-existent unless you can wish firearms into existence, and since no one has a spare genie lying around, we all see the problem.

And this big win elicited some reaction from the gun rights groups involved.

First, from the Firearms Policy Coalition:

Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the federal government’s handgun ban for adults aged 18 to 20 years old is unconstitutional. The opinion in Reese v. ATF can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/reese.

...

“Today’s ruling is yet another critical FPC win against an immoral and unconstitutional age-based gun ban. We look forward to restoring the Second Amendment rights of all peaceable adults throughout the United States,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

The FPC joined up with the Second Amendment Foundation on this challenge, so of course, they had comments as well.

In a press release, the SAF offered this:

The Second Amendment Foundation has scored an important victory in its challenge of a federal prohibition on handgun sales to young adults with a unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court decision and remand the case back for further action.

SAF is joined in the case by the Firearms Policy Coalition, Louisiana Shooting Association and two private citizens, Emily Naquin and Caleb Reese, for whom the case is named. The case is known as Reese v. ATF.

Writing for the court, Circuit Judge Edith Hollan Jones, a Ronald Reagan appointee, stated, “Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected. 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, and its 19th century evidence ‘cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence.’ In sum, 18 U.S.C. §§ 992(b)(1), (c)(1) and their attendant regulations are unconstitutional in light of our Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation. We REVERSE the district court’s judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Joining Judge Jones are Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee, and Circuit Judge Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, a George H.W. Bush appointee. Their decision relies on guidelines set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2022 Bruen ruling. 

“We’re delighted the Fifth Circuit took this action,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “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. If we can trust young adults to defend our country, we can certainly trust them to own any and all legal firearms.”

“Today the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed what prior courts and common sense tell us: ‘that the right to keep and bear arms surely implies the ability to purchase them,’” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Adults 18-20 years old are indisputably part of the People, whose rights under the Constitution are no less than their father’s or their grandfather’s.”

Now, does this settle the matter?

Not necessarily. It's likely the government will appeal this decision and ask for an en banc review. If granted, that means the case is made before all the judges on the Fifth Circuit. Regardless of what happens then, the loser can then appeal to the Supreme Court.

Ideally, the Court would hear the case and reach a similar conclusion that the Fifth Circuit panel reached.

However, I haven't seen a lot from the Court of late which makes me willing to guarantee that result.

Still, it seems pretty straightforward. While the Rahimi case hinged on whether or not people accused of a despicable, violent crime such as domestic violence could be trusted with guns, this one deals with people who are just below a certain age.

Further, the law doesn't preclude these individuals from owning guns, just buying them, which means you can't really make the case that the issue is that people in this age group are particularly dangerous. If that were the case, why can they still own firearms, just not buy them from an FFL?

In fact, the government's position in this case was that this wasn't an infringement on their gun rights because they could still own firearms. 

The Fifth Circuit found that if you can't buy them, though, then your right is most definitely infringed upon, which is true. Rights aren't dependent on the actions of others, and an age restriction on gun purchases through FFLs makes it so someone else has to act for you to have your Second Amendment rights.

Especially when you consider universal background states.

But that's a topic for another time.

For right now, this was a massive win, and both FPC and SAF should be proud of what they accomplished. However, let's also be real here. The fight is far from over.