As I sit at Command Central (you know, where the magic happens) in Indianapolis, writing this article, I can almost hear the gun grabber histrionics emanating from Capitol Hill and beyond…
A federal judge on Friday struck down a Minnesota law requiring a person to be at least 21 before obtaining an open carry permit, ruling that the law violated the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The order is the latest in a series of legal defeats for state gun control measures, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year expanding gun rights nationwide.
As reported by Fox News, three individuals under age 21 challenged a 2003 state law that implemented an age requirement to open carry in public. Assisted by gun-rights advocacy groups, they argued that the law unconstitutionally prohibited young adults from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
In a 50-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Menendez agreed.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen — a case in which SCOTUS ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense — Menendez wrote:
Based on a careful review of the record, the court finds that defendants have failed to identify analogous regulations that show a historical tradition in America of depriving 18- to 20-year-olds the right to publicly carry a handgun for self-defense.
As a result, the age requirement prohibiting persons between the ages of 18 and 20 from obtaining such a permit to carry violates the Second Amendment.
The Supreme Court also found in Bruen that any limits on gun rights must be in line with the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation.
Menendez’s ruling did not suggest she was happy with it, mind you, but instead suggested she had no choice due to the Bruen decision. She further wrote:
Given the relative dearth of firearms regulation from the most relevant period where that lens is aimed, the endeavor of applying Bruen seems likely to lead, generally, to more guns in the hands of more people, not just young adults.
Some Minnesotans are surely fine with that result,” the judge continued. “Others may wonder what public safety measures are left to be achieved through the political process where guns are concerned. But Bruen makes it clear that today’s policy considerations play no role in an analytical framework that begins and ends more than 200 years ago.
To Menendez’s credit, she wrote that while she had “reservations” about the historical analysis demanded by the Supreme Court, she noted that “judges are not historians.” So, look at that: a liberal judge who refused to legislate from the bench.
Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus Chair, Bryan Stawser lauded the decision, calling it “a resounding victory for 18-20-year-old adults who wish to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms.”
This decision should serve as a warning to anti-gun politicians in Minnesota that the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and its allies will not hesitate to take legal actions against unconstitutional infringements on the Second Amendment rights of Minnesotans.
Amen, Mr. Stawser.
However, radical far-left Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison — who in 2020 declared, “We are not interested in apprehending rapists” — filed an emergency motion for a stay, so the Democrat-run state can file an appeal of the court’s decision, or alternatively, receive “a stay for 60 days to allow for its orderly implementation.”
Uh-huh.
Translation: “Screw the U.S. Constitution, screw the Supreme Court, and screw the Second Amendment. Gun violence is caused by guns, not bad people intent on doing bad things, so we must restrict the gun rights of law-abiding citizens because we’re gun-grabbing idiots.”
The Bottom Line
This was a yuuge Second Amendment win — and the gun grabbers know it. Even better, a Biden district court judge made it happen. Ain’t that something?
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