The National Rifle Association challenged the Florida law, but a federal district judge upheld the statute in 2021.
In a unanimous 3-0 decision, the panel declared the Florida law prohibiting sales to 18-to 20-year-olds “is consistent with our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The judges concurred that the statute reached the standard set by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in last year’s landmark Bruen decision.
Justice Robin Rosenbaum wrote the court’s opinion. “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. And as a result, it does not violate the Second Amendment.”
Her analysis of the law focused on southern states after the Civil War that banned those under 21 from purchasing certain weapons such as bowie knives and pistols.
Furthermore, her ruling tied closely to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, which she said made “the Second Amendment applicable to the States.”
Rosenbaum wrote that “even if federal law obliged 18-to-20-year-olds to muster for the militia, laws banning the same group from buying firearms do not infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.”
Her ruling further noted that “automatic assault rifles” can fire “sixty rounds per minute with enough force to liquefy organs.” Rosenbaum, however, cited a footnote about an article on AR-15s — which of course are not automatic rifles.
The Supreme Court explicitly issued guidance to lower courts rejecting the use of “interest balancing” when ruling on constitutional rights. However, it appeared that Rosenbaum did exactly that when she added that young adults under 21 consist of “less than 4% of the population” but are over “15% of homicide and manslaughter arrests.”
The law, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, was passed with bipartisan support three weeks after the Parkland school shooting in 2018. A 19-year-old shot and killed 17 people in the tragic incident.
The law prohibits firearms sales to those between the ages of 18 and 21, but it does not ban them from possessing guns.
The newly upheld law also bans bump stocks, which are attachments that allow semiautomatic firearms to shoot at a faster rate.
It is possible that Florida’s legislature may revise the law in the coming session. State Rep. Bobby Payne earlier this week introduced a measure that would lower the age to purchase weapons back to 18.
The decision by the Eleventh Circuit is the first federal appeals court ruling on gun purchases by 18-to-20-year-olds to be handed down since 2022’s Bruen decision. The three-judge panel affirmed a 2021 lower court ruling that predated Justice Thomas’ opinion in Bruen.
Courts across the nation are divided on this age restriction. Federal courts in Tennessee and Texas decided against state laws banning firearm sales to adults under 21.
And even before Bruen, several federal appeals court decisions struck down bans on selling weapons to this age group.
The issue is also heating up at the federal level. President Joe Biden last year signed sweeping federal gun control legislation that created a special background check and a different process for 18-to-20-year-olds to buy guns.
With so much heat around the issue, it could very well wind its way to the Supreme Court for another key decision. It will be interesting to note how the high court rules on disallowing legal and law-abiding adults from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
