ST. LOUIS, Mo. — A federal appeals court found flaws in Minnesota’s 2023 law that banned young people under 21 from carrying handguns. The decision means that anyone as young as 18 soon will be able to apply for permits to carry handguns in public. Writing for the court, Judge Duane Benton, of the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis, said that Minnesota had failed to demonstrate that 18 to 20-year-olds should be denied a constitutional citizen right “to keep and bear arms.” The 27-page ruling drew on a recent U.S. Supreme Court rationale that any government limit on gun rights must be “consistent wih this nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.” Minnesota’s defense of the 2023 law was that 18- to 20-year-olds did not possess full civil and political rights when the nation was founded. Judge Benton, however, sidestepped a historical practice from the 1780s and noted even earlier common law included them in the “political community.” So too, said the judge, does current practice. Minnesota had argued that 18- to 20-year-olds were not competent to make responsible decisions with guns and posed a risk to themselves and to others. Minnesota’s argument, said Benton, was interesting but not supported by sufficient evidence.
Litigation profile
The 8th Circuit ruling confirms the 2021 opinion of U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez for Minnesota. Menendez ruled that government limits were inconsistent s historical tradition against firearms regulation. The Menendez opinion was a setback for the movement for common-sense gun controls. Her opinion supported a challenge to the Minnesota law by the gun industry. The challenge was in the names of three young adults from Douglas, Mille Lacs and Washington counties. They claimed that the state’s age restriction violated their citizen rights. Backing them hem were the National Rifle Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus.