In a stunning turn of events, 18-20-year-olds in Texas are now receiving concealed carry firearm permits on campuses and in businesses as per an August 2022 ruling by a US district judge, according to local media reports.
Michael Cargill of Central Texas Gun Works has confirmed that 19-year-olds have already attended his concealed carry classes and predicts that there will be an influx of younger students eager to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
The ruling by US District Court Judge Mark Pittman, which declared the Texas law that banned 18-20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public unconstitutional, is based on the argument that it contradicts the Second Amendment and US history. Judge Pittman noted that the Second Amendment did not set an age restriction on firearm possession, while minors participated in state militias in the early history of the United States.
The lawsuit that led to the ruling was filed by the Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun rights nonprofit, which has also challenged similar state-level bans in Pennsylvania and California. Cody Wisniewski, the nonprofit’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation, stated that “Texas cannot point to a single Founding Era law that prohibited 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying a functional firearm for self-defense, because not only did no such law exist, but those individuals are an important reason why we have a Bill of Rights in the first place. And young people have just as much a right to keep and bear arms in public as adults over the age of 21.”
The ruling has sparked controversy and concerns over public safety, with critics arguing that younger individuals may lack the necessary training and experience to handle firearms safely. However, supporters of the ruling argue that it upholds the fundamental rights of citizens and serves as an important step towards protecting the Second Amendment.
This ruling comes in the wake of the June 2022 US Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which saw the annulment of a New York law that had restricted the carrying of concealed handguns outside the home. The decision has enabled “much more aggressive challenges” to firearm regulation laws because some of them bear no resemblance to gun regulation or attitudes from when the United States was established.
With the debate over gun rights and regulations continuing to rage on, it remains to be seen how this ruling will impact public safety and the broader debate on the Second Amendment.
“The right to defend one’s own life and the lives of innocents when threatened is a basic human right.” – Ted Cruz
“The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments, it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits… and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” – St. George Tucker
“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson