Texas judge reverses youth handgun law

AUSTIN: A federal judge in Texas yesterday threw out the state’s ban on people between 18 and 20 years old from carrying handguns in what appears to be the first major judicial decision since a landmark ruling on weapons rights by the United States Supreme Court in June.

The challenge to the Texas statute that bans young adults not in active military service from having handguns in public was filed in 2021 by the Firearms Policy Coalition, a gunowners’ rights group.

The group said the ban violated the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which says states can organise militias and that ‘‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’’

In June, the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to carry weapons in public for selfdefence. The decision also ordered the federal judiciary to apply a ‘‘historyonly’’ test when considering challenges to weapons regulations, saying a regulation was constitutional only if it was similar to those around in the 18th century when the Second Amendment was ratified.

Judge Mark Pittman, of the US District Court in Fort Worth, ruled that there was no historical tradition of stopping young adults from carrying guns in public in an opinion that repeatedly cited the new Supreme Court ruling.

The judge suspended his ruling for 30 days to allow Texas to file an appeal.

In finding the ban unconstitutional, Pittman wrote that ‘‘the undisputed historical evidence establishes that 18to20yearolds were understood to be a part of the militia in the Founding Era.’’

Lawyers from the Texas attorney general’s office had unsuccessfully argued that there was a historical basis for determining who could carry guns based on age.

The age restriction applied only to the carrying of handguns. — Reuters