Firearms Policy Coalition wins major reversal in Fifth Circuit ruling against under-21 handgun ban | Law Enforcement Today

NEW ORLEANS, LA - In what is being hailed as a victory for Second Amendment advocates, the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the late Biden administration's attempt to defend a ban on the sale of handguns to adults under the age of 21, ruling that the ban was unconstitutional.

As reported by The New York Post, the lawsuit, led by Caleb Reese of the Firearms Policy Coalition, along with the Second Amendment Foundation and the Louisiana Shooting Association, pitted the FPC legal team, which has been wildly successful in litigating challenges to gun control laws, against DOJ Trial Attorney Daniel Riess, who represented the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its former Director Regina Lombardo, and former Attorney General Merrick Garland.

In a unanimous ruling, the Fifth Circuit’s three-judge panel blasted the Biden DOJ’s attempt to reconcile the under-21 handgun ownership ban with the groundbreaking 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which established the standard that gun regulation must align with “the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Modern-day gun bans have ZERO justification in history, because the Founding Fathers actively wanted peaceable people armed.

We know that, the 5th Circuit knows that, and now the federal government knows that. pic.twitter.com/RFuTC62vp7

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) January 31, 2025

The court refuted this soundly finding, “Instead of refusing to arm young Americans for fear of their irresponsibility, founding-era regulations required them to be armed to secure public safety.”

The court concluded decisively in the opinion penned by Judge Edith Jones, which read in part, “Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to twenty-year-old individuals among 'the people' whose right to keep and bear arms is protected.

"The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban, and its 19th century evidence 'cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence.' Id. at 66, 142 S. Ct. at 2154 (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 614, 128 S. Ct. at 2810). In sum, 18 U.S.C. §§ 992(b)(1), (c)(1) and their attendant regulations are unconstitutional in light of our Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation.

"We REVERSE the district court’s judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Firearms Policy Coalition President Brandon Combs reacted to the ruling in a statement to the Post, “Today’s ruling is yet another critical FPC win against an immoral and unconstitutional age-based gun ban. We look forward to restoring the Second Amendment rights of all peaceable adults throughout the United States.”