Pennsylvania learned the hard way on Thursday that its group of laws effectively banning young adults from carrying firearms during declared states of emergency were unconstitutional.
A Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel, through a 2-1 vote, ended the state practice of blocking individuals from 18-20 years of age from legally carrying weapons at these times. This marked a reversal of a lower court ruling that allowed the statutes to stand.
Judge Kent A. Jordan expressed the strong stand taken by the majority in Lara v. Comm’r Pa. State Police. “The words ‘the people’ in the Second Amendment presumptively encompass all adult Americans, including 18-to-20-year-olds, and we are aware of no founding-era law that supports disarming people in that age group. Accordingly, we will reverse and remand.”
Jordan further noted that there is no dispute that “18-to-20-year-olds are among ‘the people’ for other constitutional rights such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, government petitions and the right against unreasonable government searches and seizures.”
He added that excluding this age group would essentially render the Second Amendment a second class right, “subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”
The decision echoed multiple others in recent months across the nation that upheld gun rights. The basis for these rulings is 2022’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court Bruen case.
Justices in the most significant Second Amendment ruling in over a decade laid the groundwork to decide the legality of gun laws. Any statute that passes constitutional muster must be firmly grounded in the history and tradition of U.S. firearms regulations.
In other words, the right to keep and bear arms does not end at a law-abiding adult’s front door. There are no exceptions for age or state of emergency status.
The Pennsylvania decision came on the heels of similar judgments in Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas upholding the Constitution’s protection of gun rights for all adults 18 and older.
The Keystone State laws that were found unconstitutional banned carrying firearms during a state or locally declared emergency. They carved out an exemption for legal permit holders, but adults under 21 are not eligible for a permit.
Thus, they were effectively barred from legally carrying during these emergency orders.
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) along with the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) brought the suit on behalf of three young adults in 2020. Pennsylvania at that point was subjected to a state of emergency for nearly three years in response to COVID-19, the opioid crisis, and a hurricane.
State officials incredibly argued that at the time of the nation’s founding, adults under 21 were considered “infants” or “minors.”
The appeals court panel did not buy that line of reasoning and was praised for its insight by FPC Action Foundation Vice President and General Counsel Cody J. Wisniewski.
“We applaud the Third Circuit’s decision in this case confirming that 18-to-20-year-old adults have the same right to armed self-defense as any other adult. If it wasn’t for 18-to-20-year-old adults being empowered to exercise their right to defend themselves, their loved ones and their communities, our Nation wouldn’t exist — it would be a deep perversion of the Constitution to prevent them the same right today.”
Thursday’s ruling was another victory for Second Amendment rights and proved once again why it is critically important to support organizations that defend our freedoms.
