On Wednesday, NRA-ILA filed an amicus curiae (or friend of the court) brief in support of a challenge to a Minnesota’s permitting law, which bans young adults ages 18–20 from exercising their right to carry a firearm for self-defense.
NRA-ILA has been advocating for the right to carry for decades. Last year in an NRA-ILA case, the Supreme Court struck New York’s restrictive licensing statute that prohibited ordinary, law-abiding citizens from obtaining concealed carry licenses. In doing so, the Court noted that 46 states have “shall-issue” carry statutes, which was the result of NRA-ILA’s efforts.
NRA-ILA has also advocated on behalf of young adults for decades. It currently has a case challenging a Florida statute banning transfers of firearms to young adults pending before the entire Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. This case is a combination of those efforts.
“Young adults are the people,” the brief argues. “It is unquestionable that members of the founding-era militia and citizens who hold political rights” are the people, as the founders understood that term. And because they are the people with Second Amendment rights, they cannot be completely deprived of exercising their rights. Minnesota, however, claims that young adults can be deprived of their rights because their “rational thinking is overridden by more ‘impulsive, emotional, or irrational behavior.’” But if it truly believed that young adults couldn’t make rational decisions, then neither it—nor the Constitution—would allow young adults to serve on juries, the brief counters.
“‘A free society prefers to punish the few who abuse their rights after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand.’ [Minnesota has not complied] with that edict,” the brief concludes.
The case is captioned as Worth v. Jacobson. It is before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on NRA-ILA’s ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights.
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