The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has handed down a major ruling in Worth v. Jacobson in favor of the Second Amendment. The opinion by Judge Duane Benton upholds a lower court in striking down a Minnesota law limiting gun permits for persons 21 years old. It is a question that could find its way to the Supreme Court once splits among the circuits develop.
As noted by scholars such as Stephen Halbrook, it is also the first appellate court to rely on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rahimi, which gun rights advocates argued might be a break in the dam of Second Amendment protections. That dubious claim is even less compelling after reading this opinion.
Minnesota has joined states like New York and Illinois in advancing weak arguments to the benefit of gun rights advocates. It argued that, since the Founding, states have restricted guns in the hands of “irresponsible or dangerous groups, such as 18 to 20-year-olds.” That proposition was left virtually unsupported as was the suggestion that 18 to 20-year-olds are a public danger.
Moreover, the court ruled that it would not matter:
“Minnesota states that from the founding, states have had the power to regulate guns in the hands of irresponsible or dangerous groups, such as 18 to 20year-olds. At the step one ‘plain text’ analysis, a claim that a group is ‘irresponsible’ or ‘dangerous’ does not remove them from the definition of the people.”
Minnesota also argued that the plaintiffs were required to shoulder their burden in showing that they are covered by the Second Amendment. It noted that they “did not submit expert reports or facts about the Second Amendment’s text.”
That argument is meritless. They are clearly “people” under the Constitution. The court held:
“Ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens that are 18 to 20-year-olds are members of the people because: (1) they are members of the political community under Heller’s “political community” definition; (2) the people has a fixed definition, though not fixed contents; (3) they are adults; and (4) the Second Amendment does not have a freestanding, extratextual dangerousness catchall.”
The Worth decision by Judge Benton is a tour de force on the Second Amendment. It is well-reasoned and, in my view, right on the law.
Here is the opinion: Worth v. Jacobson