Eleventh Circuit Upholds Florida Under-21 Gun Sales Ban
The Second Amendment doesn’t protect the right of 18-to-20-year-olds in Florida to buy a gun, according to a new federal appeals court ruling.
On Friday, a full panel of the Eleventh Circuit upheld the Sunshine State’s ban on those under 21 buying guns. In an 8-4 decision, it argued the law met the standard for viable gun restrictions SCOTUS handed down in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The panel held the state’s age restriction is backed by enough of a historical tradition to survive a challenge by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“The Florida law that prohibits minors from purchasing firearms does not violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments because it is consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation,” Chief Judge Willaim Prior wrote for the majority in NRA v. Bondi. “From the Founding to the late-nineteenth century, our law limited the purchase of firearms by minors in different ways. The Florida law also limits the purchase of firearms by minors. And it does so for the same reason: to stop immature and impulsive individuals, like Nikolas Cruz, from harming themselves and others with deadly weapons. Those similarities are sufficient to confirm the constitutionality of the Florida law.”
The ruling deals another blow to gun-rights advocates hoping to peel back some of the restrictions Florida lawmakers imposed after the Parkland shooting and other age-based restrictions around the country. While they have made progress in loosening some of Florida’s gun laws in recent years, including its gun-carry regime, advocates have seen little progress in undoing the post-Parkland laws. Similarly, advocates have secured a series of wins against age restrictions across the country but have had no success in court against Florida’s law.
Just a month after a 19-year-old shooter murdered 17 people and injured 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the state legislature banned the sale of firearms to anyone under 21 years old. The NRA quickly filed suit, but a district court judge sided with Florida. In March 2023, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit again ruled in favor of Florida’s age restrictions.
“Because Florida’s Act is at least as modest as the firearm prohibitions on 18-to-20-year-olds in the Reconstruction Era and enacted for the same reason as those laws, it is ‘relevantly similar’ to those Reconstruction Era laws,” Judge Robin Rosenbaum, an Obama appointee, wrote for the majority. “And as a result, it does not violate the Second Amendment.”
The NRA then asked the Eleventh Circuit for an en banc review of the case, which came to the same conclusion on Monday. However, the en banc panel focused more squarely on the legal limitations those under 21 faced during the Founding Era.
“We draw two lessons from the legal treatment of minors at the Founding,” Judge Prior, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote. “First, minors generally could not purchase firearms because they lacked the judgment and discretion to enter contracts and to receive the wages of their labor. Second, minors were subject to the power of their parents and depended on their parents’ consent to exercise rights and deal with others in society.”
However, not everyone on the Eleventh Circuit agreed. Judge Andrew L. Brasher, a Donald Trump appointee, accused the majority of twisting the historical record and imposing limits on gun rights it wouldn’t apply to other parts of the Constitution.
“The Supreme Court has warned us that the Second Amendment is not a ‘second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.'” he wrote in a dissent joined by three other judges. “But the majority has read an age limit into the Second Amendment and that amendment alone.”
He noted Florida wasn’t able to produce any Founding Era laws that explicitly imposed age restrictions on gun purchases. He also questioned the relevance of later restrictions.
“The Commissioner has presented no analogous Founding-era regulation that precluded young adults from purchasing firearms,” Judge Brasher wrote. “The record of historical statutes the Commissioner did compile, which does not begin until the 1850s, does not establish a tradition of outlawing all firearms purchases by eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds. These statutes were passed many years after the Founding, and they are meaningfully dissimilar from Florida’s ban in ways that undermine the ‘how and why’ analogy.”
Judge Prior responded in part by accusing the dissenters of ignoring that 18-to-20-year-olds were not treated as adults during the Founding Era in the same way they are today.
“The dissent’s attempt to avoid the weight of legal history by labeling individuals between the ages of 18 and 21 as ‘adults’ is unavailing,” he wrote. “The dissent fails to define its category of ‘adults’ for federal constitutional purposes; it discounts the key fact that, at the Founding and until the late twentieth century, the age of majority was 21. Instead of reviewing the legal analogues for regulating the rights of individuals under the age of 21 as minors, the dissent treats contemporary ‘adults’ as the so-called ‘analogues’ of the adults of the Founding era.”
Everytown for Gun Safety cheered the decision.
“Prohibiting 18-21 year olds from purchasing firearms is a commonsense tool for preventing gun violence, and today’s decision confirms that it’s also constitutional,” Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law, said in a statement. “This result will save lives, and it is notable that the strong majority in today’s decision includes judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic Presidents.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R.) argued the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling was wrong and said he wouldn’t defend it should the Supreme Court take up the case.
“Notwithstanding CA11’s opinion today, I believe restricting the right of law-abiding adults to purchase firearms is unconstitutional,” he wrote on social media. “The Fifth Circuit quite recently reached the same conclusion. If the NRA decides to seek further review at SCOTUS, I am directing my office not to defend this law. Men and women old enough to fight and die for our country should be able to purchase firearms to defend themselves and their families.”
John Commerford, Executive Director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, decried the ruling. He said the NRA would keep trying to overturn Florida’s law through litigation or legislation.
“The Eleventh Circuit’s decision is an affront to the millions of peaceable 18-to-20-year-olds across the country who have the same right to defend themselves as any other adult,” Commerford told The Reload in a statement. “The NRA will continue to fight this unconstitutional law, whether at the U.S. Supreme Court or in the Florida Legislature.”
https://thereload.com/eleventh-circuit-upholds-florida-under-21-gun-sales-ban/