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A federal district court judge in West Virginia has delivered a significant ruling, stating that the federal law restricting handgun sales to individuals aged 18 to 20 is “facially unconstitutional.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) brought the case forward, resulting in a summary judgment.
U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas S. Kleeh, presiding over the Northern District of West Virginia, actively issued a 40-page decision.
He wrote, “(B)ecause Plaintiffs’ conduct – the purchase of handguns – ‘fall[s] [within] the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command’ and the challenged statutes and regulations are not ‘consistent with the Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation,’ the Court FINDS 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(b)(1) and (c)(1) facially unconstitutional and as applied to Plaintiffs.”
Judge Kleeh has enjoined the defendants — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, and Attorney General Merrick Garland — from enforcing these provisions against the Plaintiffs and other qualified individuals in the 18-to-20-year age group.
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Adam Kraut, the SAF Executive Director, celebrated the decision: “This is a huge victory for Second Amendment rights, especially for young adults.”
He criticized the Biden Justice Department’s stance, which suggested that individuals in this age group were not fully adults, calling it “patently ludicrous.”
Kraut’s statement underscored that the government failed to defend the constitutionality of the handgun prohibition, a point clarified by Judge Kleeh’s ruling.
Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF founder and Executive Vice President, highlighted the lack of historical evidence for the ban: “There was never any historical evidence supporting this arbitrary ban on the purchase and ownership of handguns by young adults.”
Gottlieb reminded that historically, young adults were deemed mature enough to serve in the militia and the military and to take on other adult responsibilities. He expressed his delight at the judge’s ruling.
The case, filed in September 2022, saw SAF join forces with the West Virginia Citizens Defense League and individuals Steven Robert Brown and Benjamin Weekly.
They received representation from John H. Bryan, an attorney from Union, W.Va., and SAF’s Adam Kraut, a practicing attorney from Westtown, Pa.
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