Minnesota ban on permit to carry law for those under 21 struck down

OAN Roy Francis
UPDATED 1:46 PM – Saturday, April 1, 2023

A Minnesota judge has ruled that the ban prohibiting those under 21 years of age from obtaining gun permits, which was challenged by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, is unconstitutional.

In a lawsuit filed by three individuals between the ages of 18 and 20, it was argued that the 2003 law violated their Second Amendment rights by preventing them from exercising their right to bear arms for self-defense.

United States District Court Judge Katherine Menendez ultimately decided that Minnesota’s law was unconstitutional, citing the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, and blocking it while establishing her ruling on said case’s legal test for examining laws regulating firearm possession.

“Based on a careful review of the record, the court finds that defendants have failed to identify analogous regulations that show a historical tradition in America of depriving 18- to 20-year-olds the right to publicly carry a handgun for self-defense,” Menendez wrote. “As a result, the age requirement prohibiting persons between the ages of 18 and 20 from obtaining such a permit to carry violates the Second Amendment.”

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed an emergency motion to stay the ruling so that the state could file an appeal or pursue “stay for 60 days to allow for its orderly implementation,” but Judge Menendez rejected the request.

Menendez’s decision enables those between the ages of 18 and 20 to obtain public carry firearm licenses in the state of Minnesota.

“Given the relative dearth of firearms regulation from the most relevant period where that lens is aimed, the endeavor of applying Bruen seems likely to lead, generally, to more guns in the hands of more people, not just young adults,” Menendez noted. “Some Minnesotans are surely fine with that result. Others may wonder what public safety measures are left to be achieved through the political process where guns are concerned. But Bruen makes it clear that today’s policy considerations play no role in an analytical framework that begins and ends more than 200 years ago.”

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