In a 2-1 decision, a federal appeals court has thrown out a 1968 law that set the minimum age for purchasing a handgun at 21-years-old, saying that it relegates 18- to 20-year-olds as “second class citizens,” the Washington Post reports.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned a lower court’s ruling, with a judge appointed by George W. Bush joining an appointee of Donald Trump combining for the majority. “(W)e refuse to relegate either the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status,” Judge Julius Richardson, the Trump appointee, wrote in the majority opinion. Richardson cited the Heller decision in justifying his ruling.
The dissenting judge, James Wynn, an Obama appointee, accused his colleagues of breaking “new ground by invalidating a modest and long-established effort to control gun violence. But the majority’s decision to grant the gun lobby a victory in a fight it lost on Capitol Hill more than fifty years ago is not compelled by law.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who was the defendant in the case brought by 19-year-old Natalia Marshall, a University of Virginia student who said she wanted a handgun as protection from an abusive ex-boyfriend, can appeal the decision to the entire 4th Circuit, which has a slight majority of jurists who were appointed by Democratic presidents.