US 2nd Amendment Under Assault, Freedom Firearms Guns Defense

[grarpamp]

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/federal-court-rules-its-unconstitutional-to-ban-18-20-year-olds-from-buying-guns/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-ruling-4th-circuit-panel-says-gun-laws-barring-sales-to-people-under-21-are-unconstitutional/565124e9-70d1-4e47-b060-3087ce9eadaa/
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/charges-dropped-father-shooting-officer/

Federal Court Rules It Unconstitutional To Ban 18-To-20-Year-Olds From
Buying Guns

At the age of 18, an American citizen can join the military get issued
an M-16 and have their legs blown off by an IED in Iraq - “for
freedom.” However, if that 18-year-old wants to buy a handgun in the
same country that sends them off to have their legs blown off, they
are banned from doing so - because “freedom.” All that could soon be
changing now, however, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th
Circuit has ruled that laws preventing 18-20-year-olds from buying
guns are unconstitutional.

In a split decision, the three-judge panel ruled on Tuesday that the
minimum age requirement of 21 to buy a gun in the land of the free
restricts the rights of law-abiding citizens by drawing an arbitrary
and unjustified line.

In the case, according to court documents, the plaintiffs sought an
injunction and a declaratory judgment pointing out that several
federal laws and regulations that prevent federally licensed gun
dealers from selling handguns to any 18-, 19-, or 20-year-old violate
the Second Amendment. According to the plaintiffs:

    We first find that 18-year-olds possess Second Amendment rights.
They enjoy almost every other constitutional right, and they were
required at the time of the Founding to serve in the militia and
furnish their own weapons. We then ask, as our precedent requires,
whether the government has met its burden to justify its infringement
of those rights under the appropriate level of scrutiny. To justify
this restriction, Congress used disproportionate crime rates to craft
over inclusive laws that restrict the rights of overwhelmingly
law-abiding citizens. And in doing so, Congress focused on purchases
from licensed dealers without establishing those dealers as the source
of the guns 18- to 20-year-olds use to commit crimes.

The court agreed.

    “Despite the weighty interest in reducing crime and violence, we
refuse to relegate either the Second Amendment or 18-to-20-year-olds
to a second-class status,” wrote Judge Julius N. Richardson.

The court found that 18-year-olds possess a Second Amendment right to
gun ownership and noted that they were “required at the time of the
Founding to serve in the militia and furnish their own weapons,” wrote
Richardson.

Indeed, they were. Not only is it unconstitutional to prevent
18-year-olds from buying a handgun to defend themselves, but it is
extremely hypocritical. The idea of sending an 18-year-old off to war
for a country, giving him or her a gun to defend themselves in battle
but refusing to allow that same person to defend themselves at home is
sheer nonsense.

What’s more, that same 18-year-old can vote on laws which affect the
second amendment but cannot practice that right at all.

Not everyone agrees, however, and the dissenting judge thinks that the
right to self defense is the sole doing of the gun lobby.

    “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. Nor is it consistent with the proper role of the
federal judiciary in our democratic system,” Judge James A. Wynn Jr.
Courts wrote.

According to the Washington Post, Wynn rejected as “simply surreal”
concerns about relegating the Second Amendment to second-class status.

    “No, the Second Amendment is exceptional not because it is
uniquely oppressed or imperiled, but rather because it is singularly
capable of causing harm,” wrote Wynn.

Wynn is backed by gun control advocates who point out that
18-to-20-year-olds commit gun homicides at a rate four times higher
than adults 21 and older do. It is rather irresponsible, however, that
they would use these statistics to advocate gun control given that
18-to-20-year-olds cannot legally buy a handgun — therefore proving
that the law doesn’t work.

Like all gun control measures, laws that prevent 18-to-20-year-olds
from buying guns only stop law abiding citizens from defending
themselves and do nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining weapons.

This is a fact that the court pointed out as well, noting that
allowing law abiding 18-to-20-year-olds to purchase guns in a legal
market will enhance public safety.

Attorney Elliott Harding, who represented the plaintiffs in case
pointed out that the ruling bolsters safety by allowing young people
to purchase handguns in a more regulated market with background
checks.

While this is a win for gun rights, it is likely only temporary as the
DOJ has already promised to knock it down.