On Wednesday, the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) filed a friend of the court brief supporting a legal challenge against Minnesota’s restrictive permitting law.
This statute prohibits young adults from exercising their right to carry for self-defense. Earlier this year a federal judge struck down the law, though it is still being supported in the courts by the state.
The NRA, the nation’s oldest and largest gun rights organization, has been at the forefront of Second Amendment advocacy for decades. It was an NRA-ILA case last year, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, that dramatically changed the landscape for gun laws across the U.S.
New York held oppressive laws denying the right to obtain a concealed carry license from law-abiding citizens. Bruen changed that and in the process altered lawful gun ownership everywhere.
Now the NRA-ILA continues its tireless work for young adults to be fully free to exercise their constitutional liberties. Its brief argues that “the people” as described in the Second Amendment includes young adults. Therefore, their basic liberties should not be infringed.
“It is unquestionable that members of the founding-era militia and citizens who hold political rights” are “the people” as understood by the founders. With this being the clearly defined standard, the brief asserted that the people may not be completely deprived of their basic right to concealed carry for self-defense.
Minnesota countered that young adults are eligible to be denied their liberties due to the alleged fact that their “rational thinking is overridden by more impulsive, emotional or irrational behavior.”
The NRA-ILA countered that if this is truly the case, 18- to 20-year-olds should not be allowed to serve on juries.
The organization correctly observed that a free society chooses to punish wrongdoers after their acts, not “throttle them and all others beforehand.”
