A recently proposed and quite prominent measure for gun control that was backed by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers is quite unlikely to make it through any sort of judicial scrutiny because of the precedent that was set quite recently.
Most of the perpetrators of the recent mass shootings were below the age of 21, which includes the shooters for both Buffalo and Uvalde, who were aged 18, and also the shooter from Parkland, who was aged 19.
Federal law, as it is, already bans the sale of handguns to any person under the age of 21, but young adults are still able to buy rifles in over 44 states, and many are sounding the call for brand new legislation that would attempt to change that.
Representative Adam Kinzinger made a statement in which he claimed that the currently proposed measure was entirely a “no-brainer.” He also went on to say, “We know that the human brain develops and matures a lot between the ages of 18 and 21. We just raised, without really so much as a blink, the age of purchasing cigarettes federally to 21.”
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger tells @jonkarl that raising minimum age for gun purchases to 21 “is a no brainer" to him.
“If you look at the Parkland shooting, you look at Buffalo, you look at this shooting, these are people under the age of 21.” https://t.co/Ndo3NsrFp7 pic.twitter.com/mBpxDBiyJF
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 29, 2022
Despite all of these statements, earlier this past month the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals shut down a restriction that was very close to this in scope out of California, which set to ban the sale of semi-automatic rifles to all young adults, with the 2-1 majority claiming that such a policy was just an arbitrary violation of the standard 2nd amendment rights of a group of American adults.
“America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army,” stated Judge Ryan D. Nelson as a spokesman for the majority in that case. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.”
With the current consensus of those sitting on the bench making stronger shifts towards a quite broad defense of gun rights, any age-focused restrictions affecting the right to buy long guns would most likely fail to stand.
One law professor who commented on the case out of California on behalf of the Los Angeles Times, Adam Winkler, stated that the ruling from the 9th circuit was “a harbinger of things to come,” before going on to say that “In the coming years, the courts seem certain to strike down numerous gun safety measures in the name of the 2nd Amendment.”