by Ben Whedon
The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) on Friday released an opinion declaring that a portion of the U.S. code preventing persons aged 18-20 from buying handguns is unconstitutional.
“The provision prevents young adults, who are members of ‘the people’ to whom the Second Amendment applies, from owning ‘arms’ in common use for self-defense,” the OLC opinion read. “This places the burden on the government to show that the restrictions are consistent with the Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation, which it cannot do.”
“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. 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 opinion said.
18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1) and (c)(1) bar persons under 21 from purchasing firearms other than a shotgun or rifle and require attestations of being at least 21 to buy a gun without being present in the store.
The immediate legal implications are unclear, and the DOJ hedged its opinion, saying “we conclude only that section 922(b)(1) and (c)(1) may not be enforced to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns[.]”
– – –
Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
