In the wake of Parkland, Florida enacted restrictions on adults under the age of 21 from buying long guns. Federal law already prohibited them from buying handguns, which means many lawful adults were left unable to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. Other states have similar laws on the books and others want them at the federal level, arguing these adults shouldn't have all of their rights.
Now, a federal court has decided to join the pile-on.
The problem is, at least from this layman's perspective, the judges got it completely and horribly wrong.
Saying the restriction is “consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation,” a federal appeals court on Friday upheld the constitutionality of a Florida law that raised the minimum age to purchase rifles and other long guns from 18 to 21.
The 8-4 ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came after seven years of legal wrangling in the National Rifle Association’s challenge to a 2018 law passed after a mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 students and faculty members.
Nikolas Cruz, who was 19 at the time, used a semiautomatic rifle to gun down the victims at his former school. The NRA filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the gun-age restriction shortly after the law passed.
Friday’s ruling by the full Atlanta-based appeals court upheld a three-judge panel’s decision and outlined the history of the nation’s gun laws, from its founding to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions setting guidelines for determining how to apply the Second Amendment. While the law barred people under 21 from buying rifles and long guns, they still can receive them, for example, as gifts from family members.
“From this history emerges a straightforward conclusion: the Florida law is consistent with our regulatory tradition in why and how it burdens the right of minors to keep and bear arms,” Chief Judge William Pryor wrote. “Because minors have yet to reach the age of reason, the Florida law prohibits them from purchasing firearms, yet it allows them to receive firearms from their parents or another responsible adult.”
Now, I'd accept this except for one thing: These aren't minors.
Historically, the law did have such an age limit from the time of the nation's founding, the truth was that those between the ages of 18 and 21 weren't treated like adults in any way. They couldn't vote, couldn't own property, or a host of other things we think of as basic rights of an American citizen. 21 was the overall age of majority for all rights, not just one.
The historic law wasn't that adults under a certain age couldn't buy guns, but that minors who had no access to their full rights as Americans couldn't buy guns. Adults could and did.
This law, however, says legal adults can't until they reach a certain age, something that no court would uphold for any other right. Would the courts decide parents had the power to determine what church a 19-year-old could go to? Would the judges here agree that a college student's home which he or she pays the rent for could be subjected to searches if the student's parent consented?
Of course they wouldn't.
I find this to be absolutely insane.
It's just more evidence that we can't trust the courts to get it right on gun rights.
