By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Gun prohibition groups are fuming and promising a fight over a Department of Justice opinion released Friday stating that the federal law banning licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns to young adults under age 21 is unconstitutional.
The 49-page opinion was signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser, head of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel’
“Eighteen-year-olds may vote, serve on juries, be drafted, and face adult criminal penalties, including capital punishment,” Gaiser said in a statement. “The Constitution protects the people’s right to keep and bear arms. The Department of Justice may not constitutionally seek to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns to law-abiding adults who, in nearly every other relevant respect, are members of the political community.”
The opinion states, “(W)e conclude only that section 922(b)(1) and (c)(1) may not be enforced to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns, the ‘quintessential self-defense weapon’…to a class of law-abiding adults who in nearly every other domain are full members of the political community.”
WCNC News is reporting how “federal appeals courts have split on whether handgun age limits are constitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the federal law in the wake of the 2022 landmark decision that changed the test used to evaluate challenges to firearm restrictions.”
WCNC is calling the opinion “the latest victory for gun rights groups under the second Trump administration.”
But Gaiser’s opinion has gun prohibition lobbying groups snarling. CBS News quoted Giffords Executive Director Emma Brown, who issued a statement declaring, “This is yet another illegal and dangerous action by the Trump administration to please their gun lobby CEO donors. People ages 18 to 20 are responsible for a disproportionate share of school shootings, public mass shootings, and gun homicides overall. There is a reason minimum age laws exist. We will do everything we can to fight this.”
Likewise, Kris Brown, president of Brady United Against Gun Violence, issued a statement quoted by Straight Arrow News.
“The provision prohibiting the sale of handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds has protected public safety for generations,” Brown said. “While the DOJ legal opinion does not change the law itself, it merely reflects the erroneous views of the Trump administration. The decision not to enforce the law will make it easier for young adults — a community at higher risk for gun violence — to obtain firearms.”
And Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, emailed a statement to WCNC: “Federal prosecutors nationwide will stop holding illegal sellers of handguns to 18- to 20-year-olds accountable if they know the DOJ has pulled the rug out from under them. Abandoning protections that target the highest-risk age group for handgun violence isn’t just an unconscionable surrender of public safety — it is a dangerous dereliction of duty.”
USA Today, referring to anti-gunners as “gun violence prevention advocates,” reported on a Johns Hopkins study of “offenders incarcerated for firearm-related crimes” which said 17% of these offenders “were adults under 21, despite only comprising 4% of the overall U.S. population.”
