Senate Fight Over Gun Rights for Young Adults

So far as constitutionally protected rights go, the appropriate to bear arms is the one one that’s largely infringed upon due to an American grownup’s age. Numerous legal guidelines curbing the Second Modification rights of 18- to 20-year-olds have been fought over on the state degree for the previous a number of years.

Now, one such wrestle is going down in Congress. As Democrats search to make it unlawful for adults underneath 21 to buy a typical semi-automatic rifle, Republicans within the Senate are attempting to put off the infringement banning 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from buying handguns.

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, launched a measure that might elevate the minimal age to purchase so-called “assault weapons” and misnamed “high-capacity” ammunition magazines from 18 to 21.

“Everybody in America ought to be capable of reside free from the concern of harm or dying attributable to a firearm,” Sen. Kaine mentioned in a press launch asserting the motion. “One in all many common sense steps we will take to cut back that danger is limiting younger folks’s entry to assault weapons—identical to we already restrict their entry to handguns.”

Because the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis identified in late 2023, there are extra Trendy Sporting Rifles (NSSF’s time period for what antis name “assault weapons”) in circulation than there are Ford F-150s vehicles on the highway. By any determine, that’s a firearm that’s generally owned, generally used and guarded “arms” underneath the Second Modification.

Regardless of that truth, the invoice decreasing the age to 18 is being pushed by a who’s who of gun-ban teams, together with March for Our Lives, Giffords, Newtown Motion Alliance, Everytown for Gun Security and Brady, previously known as Handgun Management Inc.

In the meantime, within the U.S. Home of Representatives, Republicans are making a push to acknowledge the infringed-upon rights of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds. On February 27, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, reintroduced the Second Modification for Each Registrable (SAFER) Voter Act, which might decrease the age from 21 to 18 for buying a handgun from a federal firearms licensee (FFL).

Rep. Massie introduced the measure, HR 1643, on Fb, posting, “I simply reintroduced the Second Modification for Each Registrable Voter Act, HR 1643. The SAFER Voter Act would repeal the federal legislation that stops voting-age adults, 18 to twenty, from buying a handgun from a FFL.”

In a press launch concerning the measure, Rep. Massie requested a poignant query: “Why ought to a 20-year-old single mother be denied the appropriate to defend herself and her youngsters?”

“18-, 19- and 20-year-olds are thought of adults and might vote on necessary public coverage points,” Rep. Massie continued. “They’ll additionally type enterprise contracts, get married and serve within the army. As adults, these People shouldn’t be disadvantaged of fundamental constitutional rights.”

One pro-gun rights group to shortly embrace the measure was Gun House owners of America (GOA).  

“The present 18 to 20-year-old handgun ban says that the Second Modification is a second-class proper, relegated to the backwaters of the Structure,” mentioned Aidan Johnson, GOA director of federal affairs. “Gun-grabbers imagine that if they’ll disarm younger folks within the years previous to turning 21, they’ll discourage and depress gun possession for a brand new technology of People. That’s why Rep. Thomas Massie’s SAFER Voter Act is so necessary as a result of it restores the appropriate of younger adults to buy handguns for self-defense.”