Minnesota's age restriction to carry handguns is unconstitutional, 8th Circuit rules
(Image from Shutterstock.)
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Minnesota’s ban preventing residents ages 18 to 20 from carrying handguns in public is unconstitutional, upholding a district-court decision that said the Second Amendment right to bear arms should apply to all adults in the state.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit could soon allow Minnesota residents to apply to carry handguns in public once they turn 18, removing an age restriction the state imposed in 2003.
In its arguments, the three-judge panel referred to a Supreme Court decision from June 2022 saying law-abiding Americans have a right to carry a handgun outside their home for self-defense.
“Minnesota has not met its burden to proffer sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that 18 to 20-year-olds seeking to carry handguns in public for self-defense are protected by the right to keep and bear arms,” the judges wrote Tuesday.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said in a statement to The Washington Post that he was “extremely disappointed” in the ruling. The state is deciding how to proceed, his statement said, but residents under 21 won’t be allowed to apply for handguns until the appeals process has concluded.
In his statement, Ellison said the ruling was especially “troubling” because it came three days after a 20-year-old fired shots from his father’s AR-style rifle at former president Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., according to federal investigators.
“The people of Minnesota want and deserve solutions that reduce shootings and improve public safety,” Ellison’s statement said, “and today’s ruling only makes that more difficult.”
The ruling stemmed from a complaint three gun rights groups filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota in June 2021, arguing that young adults should be allowed to publicly carry handguns.
Rob Doar, the vice president of government affairs for the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, one of the plaintiffs, told The Post that he was happy with Tuesday’s ruling.
“They’re going to go through the same background check and all of the same requirements,” Doar said about state residents ages 18 to 20. “Why should they be denied their right?”
After the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in June 2022, multiple gun laws were upended across the country. The ruling said U.S. gun laws must align with “history and tradition,” a stipulation that has left some courts confused.
Adam Kraut, the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, another plaintiff in the Minnesota complaint, said there are many people ages 18 to 20 who want a handgun for self-defense.
“It’s encouraging to see yet another court correctly apply the nation’s history and tradition and come to that conclusion,” Kraut, whose organization is based in Bellevue, Wash., told The Post about Tuesday’s ruling.
In March 2023, U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez struck the Minnesota law that prevents residents ages 18 to 20 from publicly carrying handguns. The state appealed, and Menendez stayed her ruling until the appeals process was resolved.
Minnesota argued to the appeals court that people under the age of 21 aren’t competent to make responsible decisions with guns, and they pose a danger to themselves and others, the judges wrote in Tuesday’s ruling. The appeals court said the state didn’t provide enough evidence to support that claim. It also said the Second Amendment doesn’t specify an age limit, so all adults should be protected.
If Minnesota’s ban is lifted, 10 states and D.C. will still require its residents to be 21 or older to publicly possess a handgun—barring exceptions—according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. There have been 18 mass killings in the United States this year, according to a count by The Post, which classifies a mass killing as a shooting in which four or more people died, excluding the perpetrators.
