This is basically Round 2, because almost undoubtedly, the goobermint will file for an ‘en banc‘ from the whole bench of the Circuit and we’ll see what happens after that.
Federal Appeals Court Tosses Ban On Gun Sales For Those Under 21
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Charlottesville. Glen E. Conrad, Senior District Judge. (3:18−cv−00103−GEC)
Argued: October 30, 2020 Decided: July 13, 2021
Before AGEE, WYNN, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.
Vacated, reversed, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee joined. Judge Wynn wrote a dissenting opinion.
Prospective handgun buyers sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seeking an injunction and a declaratory judgment that federal statutes prohibiting Federal Firearm Licensed Dealers from selling handguns and handgun ammunition to 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds (and the federal regulations implementing those statutes) violate the Second Amendment.
When do constitutional rights vest? At 18 or 21? 16 or 25? Why not 13 or 33? In the law, a line must sometimes be drawn. But there must be a reason why constitutional rights cannot be enjoyed until a certain age. Our nation’s most cherished constitutional rights vest no later than 18. And the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is no different………
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 overinclusive 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. So we hold that the challenged federal laws and regulations are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
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.