The
order by U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez in St. Paul is
the latest in a series of legal defeats for state gun control
measures following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year
expanding gun rights nationwide.
The state's 21-year age minimum, enacted as part of a 2003 gun
control law, had been challenged in a 2021 lawsuit by three gun
rights groups - Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Firearms Policy
Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation - and three
individuals.
"This is a resounding victory for 18- to 20-year-old adults who
wish to exercise their Constitutional right to bear arms," Bryan
Strawser, chair of Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, said in a
statement.
The office of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, and the
state's Department of Public Safety, which is named as a
defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
The plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit that the age minimum
violated the Second Amendment because 18- to 20-year-olds were
permitted to possess guns at the time of the United States'
founding.
Their case was bolstered last June when the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled for the first time, in New York State Rifle and Pistol
Association v. Bruen, that the Second Amendment protects an
individual's right to carry a handgun in public for
self-defense. The court also found that any limits on gun rights
must be in line with the nation's historical tradition of gun
regulation.
Menendez wrote that she had "reservations" about the historical
analysis demanded by the Supreme Court, noting that "judges are
not historians."
Nonetheless, she concluded that there were no historical laws
comparable to Minnesota's, and that Bruen required her to strike
the law down.
She noted that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently
upheld a 21-year age minimum for handgun purchases in Florida,
based on 19th-century laws, but said those laws only concerned
gun sales, not the right to carry guns.
(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia
Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)
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