If you’re old enough to die for your country with a Government-issue machine gun in your hands, you’re old enough to buy a firearm for yourself.  Read the following, from Second Amendment Foundation:

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation said this week’s ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declaring the ban on handgun sales to young adults in the 18-20-year age group to be unconstitutional is a “monumental victory for Second Amendment rights.”

Judge Julius N. Richardson, writing for the majority, observed, “Looking through this historical lens to the text and structure of the Constitution reveals that 18- to 20-year-olds have Second Amendment rights. Virtually every other constitutional right applies whatever the age. And the Second Amendment is no different.”

“Judge Richardson, in my estimation, has authored one of the best-written opinions in any gun rights case I’ve ever read,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “He has detailed the issue, provided the history and offered a perspective that doesn’t bow to political correctness.”

Gottlieb was especially impressed with Judge Richardson’s notation about the ironic nature of the gun control law being challenged.

“The irony does not escape us,” Judge Richardson wrote, “that, under the government’s reasoning, the same 18- to 20-year-old men and women we depend on to protect us in the armed forces and who have since our Founding been trusted with the most sophisticated weaponry should nonetheless be prevented from purchasing a handgun from a federally licensed dealer for their own protection at home.”

“I’ve said the same thing repeatedly,” Gottlieb acknowledged, “because it strikes at the very heart of gun control foolishness. We send young men and women into harm’s way to defend our national interests, yet our laws arbitrarily say they shouldn’t be trusted enough to buy a handgun here at home. That defies logic and common sense, and it’s an insult to anyone in the affected age group who can vote for president, run for local office, start his or her own business, buy a home, enter into contracts or get married and start a family. 

“We have similar cases pending in Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Washington, California, Minnesota and other states that this Fourth Circuit ruling could directly impact,” Gottlieb said. “The importance of common-sense decisions such as Judge Richardson’s cannot be over-stated.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms.  Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 700,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.  

23 COMMENTS

  1. This is a victory in our day, but only because getting over the bar which separates victory from defeat is so low. The Bill of Rights was accepted as law on December 15th, 1791. The understanding at that time was that 18 to 20-year-olds could own handguns. Now we have Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declaring that, yes, 18 to 20-year-olds can still own handguns.

    During this time of a Communist takeover of our nation, preserving an ancient right is indeed a victory. Will this ruling be appealed and struck down? Will it only apply to states in the Fourth Circuit? The fight to defend our ancient rights never ends. I’m glad so many people are on our side.

  2. That is a great victory. Hopefully it will stand up to the expected challenges. Maybe they can challenge Florida law, which banned sales of long guns to those under 21. That law was pushed through by anti-gun Republican former governor & current Senator Rick Scott. I have never understood the case for graduated adulthood and extended childhood in this country. You are either an adult or you are not, with all the associated rights AND responsibilities.

    • Exactly, Paul! And therefore lowering the minimum ownership and purchase age to 17, at least for military personnel, might make sense. At least some states automatically approve of active military on assignment carrying weapons in public. Beyond mission assignment, all uniformed military can be particularly at risk of personal attack, for one thing. Been there and seen that at airports in the early 1970’s. Lowering the age universally to 17 should remove any doubt of legitimate purchase, possession, or carry according to age. Just a thought.

    • Paul Rockhold,

      I once read there were five 15-year-olds on Guadalcanal, and one of them earned the Medal of Honor.

  3. It is the very nature of humankind that there is always a significant cadre of people who seek to erode our essential liberties. Some act out of well-intentioned naivete with the sincere belief that we will be better off if such liberties are surrendered and others seek to suppress resistance to increasing governmental control of our lives. The great irony is that the suppression of individual rights “for the good of society” and forced conformity to their ideals is the antithesis of their espoused valuing of diversity. It is doubly ironic when one reflects that only a few months ago, they were panicked over the rise of a “second Hitler” and fearful of a military coup to keep President Trump in office. They don’t trust the police or the military–but they want those two bodies to be the only ones with guns.
    If they didn’t have cognitive dissonance, they’d have no cognition at all.
    And if they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
    We have no choice but to remain ever vigilant and defend our liberties at the ballot box as our first/best recourse.

    • Jeff S,

      Very true. I am amazed that so many people in the USA, and around the world, do not value freedom (or liberty). Can’t they see that capitalism produces abundance while communism produces scarcity? They are blind.

  4. Very good news. Now we have to get that equally discriminatory law preventing cross state handgun purchases from an FFL thrown out.

  5. A mentor of mine once said “Power and responsibility are commensurate.” They must be in dead equal balance, because things get ugly when that particular scale tips in either direction. Power without responsibility tends to become tyranny. But responsibility, without the power to fulfill it, is the very definition of futility.”
    I’m all for 2A as originally stated but as government has slowly dumbed down societies sense of self responsibility I will not look forward to the months and years after the right to bare arms is fully reinstated while the learning curve weeds out the lowest of societies degenerates along with the good folks who will be lost defending against them.

  6. Positive decisions on the scope of the 2nd Amendment, like this one, are very valuable.

    As one would expect, most of the attacks on 2A Rights occur in oppressive”Blue” States. Naturally, the legal challenges to these attacks must also be filed in the hostile “Blue” States. Unfortunately, many of the Judges (ruling on the legal challenges) have also been infected with the invasive “Group Think” of the Marxist Left. Therefore, these Judges can (and have) twisted the law and the Constitution so as to find a tortured justification to uphold oppressive laws that are actually Unconstitutional on their face.

    So, these twisted “Blue” State rulings are building a Body of Legal Decisions that are hostile to 2nd Amendment Rights.

    Despite this “home field” advantage for the Leftists, there have been a number of positive 2A Decisions handed down over the years. Just recently, we had a ruling in California striking down their so-called “Assault Weapon” ban. Of course, it was instantly appealed but it is valuable to have this positive decision rendered in the first place. Now we have the above as another positive decision.

    Eventually, the split between the oppressive “Blue” State decisions and the positive decisions will become so embarrassing that the U.S. Supreme Court will be FORCED to stop ducking 2A questions. They will have to take some cases (they actually have one now) and better define the scope of 2A Rights.

    We can only hope. given the tortured logic used to arrive at the twisted “Blue” State decisions versus the clear, Constitutional Logic used in the positive decisions, that the SCOTUS will ultimately come down on the side of the Constitution (rejecting Left-Wing Group-Think) and uphold our 2A Rights.

    Given the pervasive nature of Left-Wing Group-Think, that is not a guaranteed but must be our hope.

    The Second Amendment Foundation deserves a lot of credit for waging this “Good Fight”.

    • That is why the Biden regime wants to pack the SCOTUS with a majority of liberal justices. Two additional Marxists like Kagan and Sotomayor would do it for now, but several more liberal would give them a greater margin of safety in case one of them has a vision and changes sides to become an impartial justice properly interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

      • @ Tom606 – In your above comment, you are using “Liberal” and “Marxist” as synonymous terms. Strictly speaking, this is not correct. A true “Liberal” values liberty. Hence, the name. A true liberal may lean to the Left on social issues but still values our constitutional rights.

        For example, at one time the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) functioned as a “Liberal” group that fought for and valued our Civil Rights. I will admit that they made an exception for the 2nd Amendment which they have never supported but they certainly supported the rest of the Bill of Rights.

        Unfortunately, all of these formerly-liberal groups have made a sharp shift to the radical Left over the last couple of decades. So much so that they have tainted the word “Liberal”.

        To my mind, these groups (including the ACLU) have abandoned liberalism. Hence, the term “Liberal” no longer applies to them. At least, not in the classic meaning of the word.

        The correct terminology for all these group is now “Marxist”. Marxism is a totally different animal than liberalism. True liberalism values the rights of the individual and would limit the power of the State to suppress these rights. On the other hand, a Marxist is a totalitarian who views the power of the Government as supreme and the rights of the individual as totally subordinate to the rights and power of the State. As I said, it is a totally different worldview.

        Many of us have a habit of continuing to refer to these formerly-liberal groups as liberal today. This is not so since they abandoned liberalism decades ago. My recommendation is to try to drop the old habit of calling them liberals. They are Marxists through and through. That is what they are and that is what they should be called, IMHO.

        I know that this seems to be a nit-picky point. However, the Left continually twists and redefines the English Language so as to support their propaganda efforts. Their efforts to use language as a propaganda weapon places a burden on Conservatives to be precise with our language so as to avoid their linguistic traps.

      • TN_MAN,

        You are correct about the term “liberal,” and I have a memory about it. Sometime in the period 1968-1970 I remember hearing adults talk about Communists in America. All of a sudden, the word went out to not speak about such things, and no one used the word “Communist” after that until very recently. The word “liberal” was commonly used, and sounded less ominous. My interpretation of that is, the Spirit of the Age was able to mask what the Communists were doing to us, the propaganda, by avoiding the term, “Communist.” Just wanted to let you and others know my experience agrees with what you wrote above.

      • TN_MAN:

        You are right and I stand corrected concerning liberals and Marxists. However I still believe they’re both evil scumbags who are bad for our country and should be taken to my alligator farm 🙂

  7. It is a victory indeed. Initiative 1639 was voted in by uneducated and constitutionally ignorant voters by a margin of 60/40. Living in Washington state, I can assure you that most of the population fits into this category since the public school system stopped teaching how American government was designed.

    I-1639 restricted firearms purchases to people 21 years or older, instituted a 10 BUSINESS day waiting period (14 day really), and prohibits private firearms sales without a background check among other things. So the “people’ were manipulated by a well funded propaganda machine to support unconstitutional qualifications to own and carry firearms.

    The 2AF out of Bellevue WASHINGTON is leading the charge to tear down restrictions to our civil rights. I tip my hat to them and support their effort to tear down restrictive and virtually unenforceable restrictions on law abiding citizens in a futile attempt to stop violence by people who believe such laws are for suckers.

  8. In light of this decision, I must yet again point to 10USC246 which defines the United States militia as all able bodied male citizens between the ages of 17 and 45. (Plus a few others.) What are your schools doing to prepare those young men for the duties and rights they will have by the time they are juniors in high school?

  9. The SAF isn’t really all that well known. It wouldn’t hurt to spread the word on various forums. I mentioned them on the S&W forum, and another forum and a number of folks posted that hadn’t known about the SAF and that they’d joined up. Hopefully more did so but didn’t post that they did.

  10. When I was an 18 year old sailor I was a lead tech and in charge of a nuclear capable missile launcher. I had to pass a FBI background check which included my neighbors and teachers being interviewed.

    Yet, I could not own a handgun, legally. I couldn’t even go down to the bar after work and have a beer because I was not old enough to be responsible for my actions.

    Here, in Illinois, we have a three day wait to get a handgun. I asked what the wait was for and was told it is a cooling off period. It was designed to stop one in the heat of passion from buying a gun and killing someone with it.

    I responded that that makes sense only for those who have no other access to firearms. Seeing I already own at least one firearm the cooling off period does nothing for me.

    I got back a blank stare.

    • Illinois+Bob,

      I remember reading a post by a former Air Force pilot. He said he was authorized to carry a nuclear bomb or missile (can’t remember which) while flying a single-seat fighter jet. So, there was an airman, probably in his twenties, who could have been the sole person in charge of carrying and deploying a nuclear weapon, and he was also in charge of the delivery system, the plane. Here is one man who could fly hundreds of miles, and set off a nuclear explosion all by himself. That is what I call responsibility.

      Our Abrams tank crews are in charge of a tank, which has one 120mm cannon, one .50 caliber machine gun, and two .30 caliber machine guns on it. Superior firepower, and excellent defensive armor to boot. One time a National Guardsman stole a tank, and drove it off post, around and over cars. The police had a hard time getting him, but they eventually got their man.

      • My best friend also enlisted at 18. He was an army MP. He carried a gun every day yet couldn’t legally buy ammo or shoot it at the range while home in Illinois for the same reason.

        You have to love this state. 5 cent per bullet tax on every round sold in Cook county. Doesn’t matter if that is a .22 or a .50 cal. Greatest proof of how well gun control works. 100’s shot every week.

      • Illinois Bob:

        Chicago gangsters, who do most of the shooting in that city, don’t mind paying the $.05 ammo tax as it’s considered a cost of doing business which is eliminating rivals and defending their drug selling turf.

        They may even claim a tax deduction for that fee, if they pay any taxes on their illegal activities, which they should. That’s how a former resident of that burg, Alfonse Capone was put away, for tax evasion, but that was back when laws were enforced and cops went after criminals. Nowadays, the Chicago politicians are even more corrupt and gangsters have free rein to do whatever they want. It would be considered racist to put those scumbags in the big house where they belong.

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