Senate Democrats Urge DOJ to Uphold Handgun Ban for Young Adults

Twenty Democrat senators, led by Kirsten Gillibrand, are telling the Justice Department to keep enforcing the federal ban on commercial handgun sales to 18-to-20-year-olds, even after the Office of Legal Counsel concluded the law is unconstitutional.

Key points

• The letter: Gillibrand and 19 colleagues argue the DOJ should be "doing more to keep guns out of the wrong hands," per Bearing Arms, and call non-enforcement a surrender to the gun lobby.
• The legal split: Federal courts disagree on whether 18-to-20-year-olds hold full Second Amendment rights, with some courts leaning on 1791's age of majority for contracts to argue they don't.
• The senators' reasoning: They cite mass shootings committed by under-21s, including Uvalde, Buffalo, the Indianapolis FedEx facility, and Parkland, as justification for keeping the handgun ban.
• The pushback: Bearing Arms notes those cited shootings involved rifles, not handguns, and argues the senators' own logic would support banning rifle sales to that age group instead, or not at all.

Quick take

Bearing Arms makes the obvious point here: punishing an entire age group for the crimes of a few isn't how we treat any other constitutional right, and 18-to-20-year-olds are adults everywhere else in the law, from voting to military service to criminal liability. The DOJ's job is to follow the Constitution, not whichever gun law happens to poll well in the Senate.

Read the full story: bearingarms.com