Mark Pittman, put on the federal bench in Fort Worth by Donald Trump, thinks that it’s just not constitutional to limit the sale of handguns to people age 21 and older. In an opinion issued Thursday agreeing with a gun group that sued to knock out Texas’ eminently sound prohibition on 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from having pistols, Pittman writes that he can’t find an age cutoff in the sparse language of the Second Amendment.
Let’s take a look: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Well, neither can we (even if we read it backwards or using a mirror). Thus, Pittman wants to strike down the 21-and-older law, which is the same in every state and sometimes covers long guns, including assault weapons.
The judge’s non-logic is that having a gun for personal use is a fundamental right (thank you, U.S. Supreme Court, for misinterpreting the need for farmers cum Minutemen to keep and bear flintlock muskets to resist the Redcoats) and there is no age limit on fundamental rights.
Pittman himself notes that the age of majority back then was 21, but reasons that it’s 18 now (but not for buying booze or renting a car). But why stop at 18? The Bill of Rights covers people who are age 17, as they are entitled to free speech and the rest of it. So why can’t 17-year-olds have handguns? Or 10-year-olds? Or 4-year-olds, if they make the triggers easy enough to squeeze?
We trust that the federal appeals court in Texas will overturn Pittman’s fantasy. And then the gun crazies will ask the Supreme Court for a hearing. Scarily, the high court is so warped now that they may go along with Pittman. Of course, the fact that it’s young men aged 18, 19 and 20 who are committing mass murder and engaged in street violence across the country, that doesn’t matter at all.
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