Federal appeals court agrees that Minnesota age limit on carrying handguns in public is unconstitutional

A federal appeals court on Tuesday agreed that Minnesota’s ban on 18- to 20-year-olds carrying handguns publicly is unconstitutional, the second and greatest legal blow yet to the 2003 state law.

The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals made it almost certain with its 27-page ruling decision — which leaned on a pair of recent Supreme Court gun rights decisions — that Minnesota adults younger than 21 will soon be able to apply for permits to carry handguns in public.

The ruling comes nearly three years after a trio of gun-rights advocacy groups and three young adults sued Minnesota’s public safety commissioner and the sheriffs of the plaintiffs’ respective counties — Douglas, Mille Lacs and Washington — arguing that the age restrictions violated their Second Amendment rights.

Writing for the court, Judge Duane Benton concluded that Minnesota had failed to “proffer sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that 18- to 20-year-olds seeking to carry handguns in public for self-defense are protected by the right to keep and bear arms.” Therefore, he wrote, Minnesota’s carry ban is unconstitutional.

Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruling lets stand last year’s decision from U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez — a 2021 appointee of President Joe Biden — that turned on recent Supreme Court guidance that governments seeking to limit gun rights must show that their laws are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.”

First filed in 2021, the lawsuit attracted national attention from groups on both sides of the issue — including the National Rifle Association, the Michael Bloomberg-backed Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Bryan Strawser, chair of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, a plaintiff in the suit, said in a statement after Tuesday’s ruling that the decision was “a resounding victory for 18-20-year-old adults who wish to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms.”

Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation, another plaintiff, added that it was “one more step in our crusade to win firearms freedom one step at a time.”

Menendez last year stayed a ruling that would have immediately prevented Minnesota from barring 18- to 20-year-olds from applying for permits to carry until the appeals process was exhausted.

In a statement, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is now mulling whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, lambasted the court’s decision.

“I am extremely disappointed in today’s ruling. This epidemic of gun violence will continue unabated unless we do something about it....Just days ago, a 20-year-old tried to take the life of the former President of the United States. The people of Minnesota want and deserve solutions that reduce shootings and improve public safety, and today’s ruling only makes that more difficult. Despite this setback, I remain as committed as ever to improving public safety in Minnesota by championing and defending lifesaving, common-sense gun violence prevention measures.”

The Eighth Circuit agreed with Menendez’s opinion that Minnesota had not demonstrated that its age restriction was consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation, a precedent established in the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling striking down New York’s ban on carrying guns in public.

In his statement, Ellison also criticized the decision in that case, known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, saying the court is responsible for “opening the floodgates to litigation from gun advocacy groups looking to undo reasonable safety legislation.”

“This year alone, Minnesota has experienced at least four mass shootings ... It is extremely troubling that Clarence Thomas’ misguided opinion in Bruen is preventing us from acting to protect the public from senseless violence like this.”

Courts have since parsed that new guidance while considering other restrictions, such as the recently upheld ability to prevent those subject to domestic abuse restraining orders from possessing firearms in United States v. Rahimi.

“We strongly disagree with today’s Eighth Circuit decision in Worth v. Jacobson,” said Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law. “Public-carry age restrictions are constitutional under any reasonable reading of the Second Amendment, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in United States v. Rahimi.”

Minnesota tried to take a historical tack in its arguments, claiming that because 18- to 20-year-olds did not possess full “civil and political rights” at the nation’s founding – that was reserved for those 21 and older – they could not today be considered members of “the people” guaranteed certain gun rights under the Second Amendment.

Benton wrote that even if such a group was not included in the “political community” at common law, “they are today.” He also wrote that the Second Amendment’s plain text does not have an age limit, unlike age limits for serving in Congress or as president.

Minnesota explained that its carry ban was in place because 18- to 20-year-olds are not competent to make responsible decisions with guns and pose a risk of being dangerous to themselves and to others as a result. But Benton wrote that Minnesota failed to support that claim with enough evidence.

“Although we take no position on how high the risk must be or what the evidentiary record needs to show, the answer is surely more than what Minnesota’s general crime statistics say,” Benton wrote.