The National Rifle Association is challenging a Florida law that prevents people under 21 from purchasing rifles and other long guns. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear the NRA’s arguments Oct. 22 in Atlanta.
A federal district judge and a three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the age restriction, but the full appeals court last year decided to take up the case.
The law was spurred by the February 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.
The NRA argues that the Florida law does not align with a 2022 Supreme Court opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bryan, which says gun laws must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“This law is unconstitutional,” wrote John Parker Sweeney, an attorney for the NRA, in a July 31 court brief. “The Second Amendment’s text protects young adults’ right to purchase a firearm, and the state has not proven that the ban is consistent with our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The young adult ban cannot stand.”
The state’s attorneys noted their own position in an Aug. 30 brief, emphasizing that though those under 21 cannot purchase the gun, they can possess and use one.
“Florida’s law restricting the purchase, but not possession or use, of firearms by those under 21 is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition,” the state attorneys wrote.