This is a HUGE win, and it may be the first (of many) post-Bruen gun control law to be struck down on the merits.
It is about time that these insane gun control laws are being looked at more closely.
There is not one reason that there should be any restrictions on our right to carry, but the left does not want the American people to be armed, right?
In Texas, a law denied 18-20 year-olds from carrying a weapon in public.
The gun-grabbers in the red state tried to argue that these young people were not privy to self-defense,k but thankfully, the Firearms Policy Coalition challenged it, and they won.
Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced a victory in Andrews v. McCraw, its Second Amendment lawsuit that challenged a ban on young adults’ handguns in the State of Texas. The judgment and injunction can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.
“The issue is whether prohibiting law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying a handgun in public for self-defense is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” wrote Judge Mark Pittman in his Opinion. “Based on the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by Founding-Era history and tradition, the Court concludes that the Second Amendment protects against this prohibition. Texas’s statutory scheme must therefore be enjoined to the extent that law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds are prohibited from applying for a license to carry a handgun.”
“Texas cannot point to a single Founding Era law that prohibited 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying a functional firearm for self-defense because not only did no such law exist, but those individuals are an important reason why we have a Bill of Rights in the first place,” said FPC Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation, Cody J. Wisniewski.
“The typical age of individuals who went to war with the British for our Independence was between 17 and 20. And young people have just as much a right to keep and bear arms in public as adults over the age of 21. This decision is a significant victory for the rights of young adults in Texas. It demonstrates for the rest of the nation that similar bans cannot withstand constitutional challenges grounded in history, as Bruen and Heller require. We look forward to restoring the right to keep and bear arms throughout the United States in the coming months and years.”
To allow Texas time to appeal and seek a stay, the trial court stayed the injunction for 30 days. “Though Plaintiffs’ interest in the vindication of their Constitutional rights suffers while the judgment has stayed, the stay is necessary to militate the possible negative effects of relying on the injunction while it is subject to appellate review and possible reversal,” the Court said. As such, young adults in Texas under age 21 should not carry handguns in public under this decision until the injunction takes effect. FPC will continue to update this case at FPCLaw.org and on social media.
The judgment in Andrews is likely the first final judgment on the merits in favor of Second Amendment rights since the Supreme Court’s decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen this June.