After all, the forces that want to eradicate gun rights are applying pressure on all fronts. Standing up to their schemes many times amounts to playing Whack-a-Mole against attempts to further strip away hard-won freedoms.
Such is the case in the Firearms Policy Coalition’s (FPC) lawsuit against Georgia’s ban on concealed carry for young adults.
Last week, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs in the case have legal standing to bring it before the court.
Circuit Judge Andrew L. Brasher wrote the majority opinion, which found the trio had legal standing to sue local judges charged with issuing carry permits. He ruled the plaintiffs are within their rights to pursue the case due to having to decide between carrying a firearm without a license despite being an adult and being prosecuted or forgoing a constitutional right.
The three litigants have the right to sue, according to Brasher’s opinion, even if they had not applied for a carry permit. He determined that, to suffer injury, the parties did not have to go through with the “futile gesture” of a formal application.
The panel determined the county judges may be sued because they are not acting in their judicial capacity when issuing licenses. Rather, they are carrying out a function that lawmakers happened to assign to them.
In summary, Brasher remanded the case back down to the district court and allowed it to proceed.
A win for the Second Amendment as it preserves the goal of allowing young adults the right they should enjoy to bear arms. This reversed a lower court decision that dismissed the attempt to end Georgia’s prohibition on 18- to 20-year-olds bearing arms for self-defense.
The lower court ruled in Baughcum v. Jackson that the plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue the case. But the appeals panel wrote, “We are confident that the case is not moot — at least as to one of the individual plaintiffs and the FPC.”
Two of the three original plaintiffs in the FPC lawsuit, Meyer and Long, turned 21 while this case was pending. This means they are now eligible in the Peach State to apply for a concealed carry permit.
Baughcum is still 20.
The appeals court added that the FPC is a major gun rights organization with numerous members. These include young adults in Georgia currently prohibited from protecting themselves through concealed carry.
Therefore, the plaintiffs continue “to have associational standing to litigate this suit.”
This news was welcomed by FPC Action Foundation Vice President and General Counsel Cody J. Wisniewski. He expressed his satisfaction that the appeals court agreed with his organization that the challenge to the Georgia law may move forward.
“The defendants have sought to avoid the actual constitutional issues underlying this case by attempting to distract the Court with theories about why we couldn’t bring this challenge. Now that the Eleventh Circuit has settled that question, we can proceed with what really matters — vindicating the rights of 18- to 20-year-old adults in Georgia.”
Wisniewski is certainly correct. Considering the high court’s momentous Bruen decision reaffirming the right to bear arms, it is almost certain that the state statute fails to reach this bar. The plaintiffs live to fight another day, and justice may still be won for Georgia’s young adults.
