“Federal Judge Strikes Down Law Banning Licensed Gunsmiths from Selling Guns to Under-21s, Advocates for Better Gun Control Face Major Setback”

Advocates for better gun control in the United States suffered a major setback after a federal judge ruled to strike down a law that for more than half a century has banned licensed gunsmiths from selling guns to young people. under 21 years old.

The ruling, dated Wednesday, May 10, comes as proponents of greater control are trying to convince Congress to ban younger people from acquiring assault rifles.

These AR-15 type weapons, at the heart of many bloodbaths, were not common in 1968 when parliamentarians passed a law to ban gunsmiths from selling handguns to young people aged 18 to 21, on the grounds that they commit more crimes than the older ones. Since then, young Americans can obtain revolvers and pistols at private sales, in fairs or through their parents, but not in businesses with a federal license, where they can buy all kinds of guns.

An appeal could bring the decision to the Supreme Court

The 1968 law has been the subject of several legal challenges since its adoption but had held up until then. On Wednesday, Federal Judge Robert Payne, who sits in Virginia, ruled that a judgment rendered in June by the United States Supreme Court had changed the situation. The predominantly conservative High Court ruled that the Constitution protected the right of Americans to carry a gun outside their homes, and ruled that the only possible restrictions must be in the history of the country.

For Judge Payne, this is not the case here: “The law and its implementing decrees are not consistent with the history and traditions of our nation, and therefore cannot stand”he wrote in his seventy-one-page decision. “From time immemorial young people have behaved like… young people. The social problem of their impetuosity and haste predates the founding fathers” who had not yet adopted rules to prevent them from acquiring weapons, he adds.

His decision, which is expected to be appealed and could end up in the Supreme Court, was strongly criticized by the association Everytown for Gun Safety, which campaigns for more restrictions on firearms. “18-20 year olds commit homicides with firearms at a rate three times higher than adults over 21”noted in a press release one of its managers, Janet Carter, for whom the judgment “will undoubtedly endanger lives”.

In 2021, firearms caused more than 47,000 deaths in the United States, including 26,000 suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website, which refers.