A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 is unconstitutional.
The decision came from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the law violates the Second Amendment.
The court also said that a San Diego judge should have blocked what is called “an almost total ban on semiautomatic centerfire rifles” for young adults.
Judge Ryan Nelson wrote “America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army”. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms”.
U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein, who was assigned to the panel from the Southern District of New York, wrote a dissent, reported Fox News.
The Firearms Policy Coalition said the ruling brings hope that age-based gun bans will be overturned in other courts.
“Today’s decision confirms that peaceable legal adults cannot be prohibited from acquiring firearms and exercising their rights enshrined in the Second Amendment,” FPC Vice President of Programs Adam Kraut told Fox.
“We are pleased to see progress on this important legal front and optimistic that similar results will come from our many other challenges to age-based bans filed in courts across the United States,” Kraut added.
Gun rights advocates had hoped the state would be banned from requiring a hunting license for purchases of rifles or shotguns by adults under 21 who are not in the military or law enforcement.
The court ruled that the requirement was reasonable for increasing public safety through “sensible firearm control”.
Handgun sales to those under 21 were prohibited when the hunting license requirement was passed in 2018, and the law banning sales of semiautomatic rifles to anyone under 21 was passed in 2019.