Several decisions have been rendered recently on whether persons aged 18 to 20 have a Second Amendment right to carry or purchase a handgun or any firearm. I'd like to highlight the March 31, 2023, decision of U.S. district judge Katherine Menendez (D. Minn.), which is one of the most thorough decisions to date on the young-adult carry issue. The case is Worth v. Harrington.
Judge Menendez granted summary judgment to the 18-to-20-year-old plaintiffs who were ineligible for carry permits under Minnesota law. While the Supreme Court held in Bruen that carrying a handgun was within the plain text of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the state argued that persons under 21 were not considered to be part of "the people" when the Amendment was adopted. Worth rejected that argument for four reasons.
First, "the people" includes "all Americans who are a part of the national community," which includes persons eighteen and older. That phraseology originated in the Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), which equated the meaning of "the people" in the First, Second and Fourth Amendments. Worth agreed with the textual analysis in Firearms Pol'y Coal. v. McCraw (N.D. Tex. 2022), which invalidated the Texas law requiring permit holders to be at least 21.
