The Justice Department has concluded that barring licensed dealers from selling handguns to adults under 21 violates the Second Amendment, sharpening a divided legal fight.
The department’s Office of Legal Counsel released its opinion Friday. It covers both handguns and handgun ammunition sold to adults ages 18 to 20 by federally licensed dealers.
The opinion challenges a restriction dating to the Gun Control Act of 1968. It also puts the federal government behind a plain principle: Constitutional rights apply to legal adults.
The opinion does not bind courts or create legal precedent. Even so, CBS News reported that federal prosecutors will likely refrain from pursuing felony charges against dealers suspected of knowingly making such sales.
That practical effect matters. Congress may leave a law on the books, but prosecutions become less likely when the Justice Department’s own lawyers conclude that the law violates the Constitution.
Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser framed the issue around the responsibilities that federal and state law already place on 18-year-olds.
Gaiser wrote:
“Our laws deem an eighteen-year-old ‘mature enough to be drafted, vote, serve as a juror, and be sentenced to death.’ One such eighteen-year-old represented the United States at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, shooting skeet.”
His example focused on an unnamed American athlete who competed in skeet shooting at age 18. She later returned to her studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Gaiser wrote:
“Yet, due to statutes predicated on concerns over an eighteen-year-old’s ability to handle a pistol as a responsible adult, it would have been a federal felony if a licensed dealer had sold her such a firearm before she left or after she returned to her studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.”
The federal law draws a sharp line between types of firearms. Adults under 21 may buy rifles, shotguns, and ammunition for those firearms, but licensed dealers cannot sell them handguns or handgun ammunition.
The Justice Department’s reasoning exposes the inconsistency. An 18-year-old may bear major civic duties and exercise other constitutional rights, yet the federal government has treated handgun ownership differently at the sales counter.
The Justice Department did not enter a settled legal field. Federal appeals courts reached conflicting decisions on handgun age restrictions last year, leaving the issue unresolved nationwide.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal ban on handgun sales to adults under 21 is unconstitutional. The Third and Eighth circuits rejected similar restrictions imposed at the state level.
Other courts went the opposite way. The Fourth Circuit upheld the federal restriction, while the Tenth and Eleventh circuits upheld state age limits.
The Supreme Court declined to take up the issue last year. That left different parts of the country operating under competing appeals court rulings while the federal restriction remained in place.
The Justice Department opinion does not erase that split. It does, however, establish how the executive branch now reads the Constitution and signals how federal prosecutors are likely to handle suspected violations.
GIFFORDS, a gun-control organization, condemned the decision and accused the Trump administration of acting for firearms industry donors. Executive Director Emma Brown also argued that minimum-age laws address violence involving younger adults.
Brown said:
“This is yet another illegal and dangerous action by the Trump administration to please their gun lobby CEO donors.”
She also claimed that people ages 18 to 20 account for a disproportionate share of several categories of gun violence.
Brown said:
“People ages 18 to 20 are responsible for a disproportionate share of school shootings, public mass shootings, and gun homicides overall. There is a reason minimum age laws exist. We will do everything we can to fight this.”
That argument addresses public policy, but the Justice Department opinion asks a constitutional question. The government must justify why legal adults can exercise a right in one form while federal law blocks another form.
Congress created that distinction in 1968. More than five decades later, courts remain divided over whether it can survive Second Amendment review.
The immediate consequences will likely appear in federal charging decisions. Licensed dealers accused of knowingly selling handguns to customers under 21 may face less risk of felony prosecution under the restriction.
But the broader legal question remains open because an Office of Legal Counsel opinion cannot overrule Congress or bind federal judges. A future court ruling could still determine whether the age limit remains enforceable.
For now, the Justice Department has taken a clear position. Adults do not lose a constitutional right merely because government officials believe a broad age restriction would be easier to administer.
A government that treats 18-year-olds as adults cannot brush aside their constitutional rights when politics become difficult.
