Another court victory for the Second Amendment.
On Friday, Judge Thomas S. Kleeh issued a decision striking down the federal prohibition against 18 to 20-year-olds purchasing handguns.
The plaintiffs in the case are Steven Robert Brown, Benjamin Weekley, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the West Virginia Citizens Defense League.
Judge Kleeh, a Donald Trump appointee, is Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Kleeh put the case in context:
This case requires the Court to assess the protected right of the people under the Second Amendment to the Constitution to keep and bear arms. U.S. Const. amend. II. Plaintiffs Robert Brown (“Brown”) and Benjamin Weekley (“Weekley”), individuals, are “law abiding, responsible adult citizens who wish to purchase handguns.”…Brown and Weekley are citizens of West Virginia and the United States of America and are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. Brown and Weekley, as law-abiding, responsible adult citizens, would purchase handguns and handgun ammunition from Federal Firearms Licensees (“FFLs”) but for the right proscribed by 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1).
He went on to explain that Brown and Weekley had each tried to buy a handgun but were “refused the sales because they were under twenty-one years of age.”
Kleeh noted that the plaintiffs sought summary judgment against the statute while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), Attorney General Merrick Garland, and ATF Director Steven Dettelbach sought to have the case dismissed.
He sided with the plaintiffs and quoted extensively from Bruen (2022) to show the manner at which he arrived at his decision.
Here is one of Kleeh’s quotes from the Bruen decision:
To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest…To demonstrate the regulation of that conduct is within the bounds of the Second Amendment, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”
It’s taken a bit of time, but we’re finally seeing Bruen test standards used to strike down gun-grabbing laws. Hopefully a whole lot more will be struck down in the near future…
Tags: ATF, Benjamin Weekley, Guns, Merrick Garland, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, Regulation, Robert Brown, Second Amendment, Second Amendment Foundation, Thomas S. Kleeh
[…] CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: 18-20 Handgun Ban Struck Down. […]
It is harder to master handgun technique than it would be to attain similar proficiency with a long gun, either shotgun or rifle. As such, students ought to be introduced to the pistol earlier in their training to allow sufficient time to overcome the weapon’s inherent deficiencies of less power and shorter range.
Lowering the age threshold to handgun access would seem to be the logical approach to firearms proficiency. Evidently the historical bias towards arming officers with swords/sidearms in lieu of rifles led to the belief that foot soldiers were rebelling against their “station in life” by bearing similar accoutrements, making distinctions between the ranks less easy to recognize.
A pistol in the hands of a well-trained soldier is a highly effective reactionary tool whose use should be not be unreasonably restricted to officers and older recruits. A young soldier has as much right to survive a sudden violent encounter as anyone.
I wish that they would use Heller, too. You have a fundamental right to keep and bear arms. If you are an adult, you may fully exercise your rights.