The Justice Department on Friday released a new legal opinion that concludes a federal gun law prohibiting firearms dealers from selling handguns or handgun ammunition to young adults between the ages of 18 and 20 is unconstitutional by violating their Second Amendment rights.
The opinion was issued one day after CBS News reported that the Justice Department will also not appeal a court decision that largely deregulates silencers, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns and other bespoke guns under the National Firearms Act. The ban on selling handguns to adults under the age of 21 stemmed from a separate law.
“Our laws deem an eighteen-year-old ‘mature enough to be drafted, vote, serve as a juror, and be sentenced to death.’ One such eighteen-year-old represented the United States at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, shooting skeet,” wrote T. Elliot Gaiser, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. “Yet, due to statutes predicated on concerns over an eighteen-year-old’s ability to handle a pistol as a responsible adult, it would have been a federal felony if a licensed dealer had sold her such a firearm before she left or after she returned to her studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.”
The OLC opinion is not legally binding, nor does it create any precedent.
However, it is likely to lead federal prosecutors across the country to refrain from pursuing felony charges against licensed firearms dealers who are suspected of knowingly selling handguns to young adults under the age of 21.
The pro-gun control organization GIFFORDS assailed the decision, calling it “the latest move by the Trump administration to refuse to defend the law to please the gun lobby.”
“This is yet another illegal and dangerous action by the Trump administration to please their gun lobby CEO donors,” GIFFORDS Executive Director Emma Brown said in a statement. “People ages 18 to 20 are responsible for a disproportionate share of school shootings, public mass shootings, and gun homicides overall. There is a reason minimum age laws exist. We will do everything we can to fight this.”
Congress banned firearm dealers from selling handguns and handgun ammunition to people under the age of 21 in the Gun Control Act of 1968. The law allows young adults under 21 to buy rifles, shotguns and associated ammunition. Some states have stricter age rules for purchasing rifles.
Those age limits have drawn legal challenges, with mixed results in court. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the federal ban on handgun sales to adults under 21 is unconstitutional, and the 3rd and 8th circuits have ruled against similar state-level rules. But the 4th Circuit upheld the federal age restrictions last year, and the 10th and 11th circuits have upheld age limits at the state level.
The Supreme Court, which has taken an expansive view of the Second Amendment in recent years, declined to take up the issue last year.
