(Bloomberg) — A Texas judge has sided with a gun-rights lobby group that challenged a state law barring 18-to-20-year-olds in Texas from carrying a handgun outside the home.
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US District Judge Mark T. Pittman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ruled Thursday the law violates the Second Amendment, guaranteeing the right to bear arms.
“The Second Amendment does not mention any sort of age restriction,” the judge wrote. “The Court thus concludes the plain text of the Second Amendment, as informed by Founding-Era history and tradition, covers the proposed course of conduct and permits law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
The lobby group Firearms Policy Coalition sued the Texas Department of Public Safety for enforcing a law that prohibits those under 21 years of age from carrying a handgun outside their home, motor vehicle or watercraft. The group argued that young people under 21 had just as much right to bear arms in public as those who are older.
Pittman put his ruling on hold for 30 days to give the state an opportunity to appeal.
The ruling comes just three months after an 18-year-old opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde with a semi-automatic rifle, killing nineteen children and two adults. The gunman purchased the firearms legally on his eighteenth birthday. The mass shooting reignited the national debate on gun control and earlier this year the Biden Administration passed a gun safety bill into law.
The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety is backed by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.
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