U.S. judge throws out Texas gun ban for young adults after Supreme Court
ruling
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[August 26, 2022]
By Jonathan Allen
(Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas threw
out the state's ban on people between 18 and 20 years old from carrying
handguns on Thursday in what appears to be the first major judicial
decision since a landmark ruling on weapons rights by the U.S. Supreme
Court in June.
The challenge to the Texas statute that bans young adults not in active
military service from having handguns in public was filed in 2021 by the
Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun-owners' rights group. The group said
the ban violated the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which says
states can organize militias and that "the right of the people to keep
and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Second
Amendment guaranteed an individual right to carry weapons in public for
self-defense. The decision also ordered the federal judiciary to apply a
"history-only" test when considering challenges to weapons regulations,
saying a regulation was constitutional only if it was similar to those
around in the 18th century when the Second Amendment was ratified.
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Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth ruled that
there was no historical tradition of stopping young adults from carrying
guns in public in an opinion that repeatedly cited the new Supreme Court
ruling.
The judge suspended his ruling for 30 days to allow Texas to file an
appeal.
In finding the ban unconstitutional, Pittman wrote that "the undisputed
historical evidence establishes that 18-to-20-year-olds were understood
to be a part of the militia in the Founding Era."
Lawyers from the Texas attorney general's office had unsuccessfully
argued that there was a historical basis for determining who could carry
guns based on age.
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![](../images/082622PIX/news_v12.jpg)
An attendee holds a handgun on display
at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention in
Houston, Texas, U.S. May 29, 2022. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare
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The age restriction only applied to the carrying of handguns; long
guns can be bought in Texas once a person turns 18, as was the case
with the 18-year-old shooter who used a semi-automatic rifle to
attack a school in Uvalde, Texas, in May, killing 19 children and
two teachers.
There was no immediate comment from the office of Texas Governor
Greg Abbott or the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, both
Republicans.
Last year, Abbott signed a law that meant Texans over 21 years old
no longer had to get a license or undergo a background check or
training to carry a handgun.
Democratic leaders across the United States have decried the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v.
Bruen for making it much more difficult to regulate guns in a
country where mass shootings have become recurrent.
The Firearms Policy Coalition said it is challenging similar
restrictions on young adults carrying guns in Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, Illinois, Minnesota, California and Georgia.
"This decision is a significant victory for the rights of young
adults in Texas and demonstrates for the rest of the nation that
similar bans cannot withstand constitutional challenges grounded in
history," Cody Wisniewski, a senior attorney for the group, said in
a statement.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; editing by Grant McCool)
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