The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear Minnesota’s appeal of the state’s carry age restrictions on 18 to 20-year-old adults, which were previously determined to violate Constitutional protections.
Minnesota enforced the now-defunct age restriction law throughout the appeals process, beginning in 2023 when a district judge sided with challengers, through 2024, when that ruling was upheld by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and right up until Monday, April 21, this year, when the case came to a sudden and decisive halt after being rejected on appeal by the Supreme Court.
The previous 8th Circuit decision cited the state’s failure to present evidence of a suitable historical analogue, making it clear that while a government is permitted to disarm individuals who threaten the safety of themselves and others, “Minnesota has failed to show that 18- to 20-year-olds pose such a threat.”
While this is a win for the Second Amendment community, the manner in which the law’s unconstitutional application survived both district court and Court of Appeals rulings for several years until the state’s final Supreme Court rejection is somewhat disturbing. Do you think we, as Americans, would be afforded the same oppertunity to defy lower and appeals rulings for years as if they didn’t count? Certainly, we would see the inside of a prison cell if we treated rulings with such blatant disregard. Additionally, I’d like to know what compensation, if any, is now owed to constituents who were forced to live under a law for several years after it had already been adjudicated unconstitutional by two courts. I won’t hold my breath.
Minnesota will no longer be able to enforce the law, barring people younger than 21 from obtaining a permit to carry in public. The state previously referred to the restriction as “modest,” considering current Minnesota gun laws that provide for significant access to youths, including the lack of an age restriction when supervised by a parent or guardian and the ability to possess guns on their property or while hunting without supervision by the age of 14.
Minnesota is not the only state to enact retaliatory legislation after the landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which required laws to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to be compliant with the Second Amendment. I doubt we’ve seen the last of this type of subversive legislation.
As oddly incoherent as this sounds, the 8th Circuit’s ruling and the Supreme Court’s rejection of the appeal do not set nationwide precedent but only a standard that can be enforced in the states within the 8th Circuit’s jurisdiction: Minnesota, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. Regardless of jurisdictional discrepancies on a right guaranteed to all law-abiding Americans by the Constitution, Bill Sack, the director of legal operations at the Second Amendment Foundation, says, “This ruling will have reverberations nationwide,” as he notes the group is currently embroiled in similar litigation around the country which seeks to “restore the rights of young adults who face similarly unconstitutional laws in their home states.”
Advocacy groups like the Second Amendment Foundation have their work cut out for them as more than 30 states, including the District of Columbia, have enacted similar carry restrictions. In a court filing, Minnesota attorneys stated that courts “should not lightly set aside legislative attempts to address the increase in gun violence by young people,” however, the state should be reminded of two important principles that stand diametrically opposed to this attempt to manipulate and gaslight. First, no government, be it local, state, or federal, should not lightly set aside the Constitutional rights of Americans, the way Democrat-run states seem so eager to do. Second, the denial of this unconstitutional restriction does not prohibit legislative attempts to address violence by Americans of any age group. It simply prohibits addressing them arbitrarily and by unconstitutional attempts at back-door gun control, which is really what the law was.
