The Bruen verdict struck the gun control movement in our nation like a lightning bolt. When they read its text and understood its reach, they realized that it put a lot of the foundation for gun control regulations that had been developed over many years in jeopardy.
One of the earliest instances of such occurred in August when a US District Court found that Texas’s ban on adults under the age of 21 possessing firearms was unconstitutional in a case brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition. According to Bruen, the court determined that the prohibition on the possession of firearms by some people who fall within an arbitrary age range is incompatible with the nation’s legal history and practice regarding firearms.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Department of Public Safety announced that they would appeal the ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the same Attorney General, mind you, who is currently suing the ATF in support of unregulated suppressor sales for cans that are made and sold entirely within the state of Texas.
Eventually, however, common sense (likely mixed with healthy portions of political and legal reality) seems to have gotten the better of Attorney General Paxton. Yesterday his office announced that they are dropping their appeal of the District Court ruling, so any law-abiding adult, age 18 and up, is now able to carry a firearm within the Fifth Circuit.
Here’s the FPC’s announcement:
Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that Texas has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to withdraw the state’s appeal of the district court order that struck down its ban on handgun carry by young adults. The motion in FPC’s Andrews v. McCraw, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.
“We applaud Texas for doing the right thing and accepting the district court’s ruling against its law prohibiting 18-to-20-year-old adults from carrying firearms in public,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “Not only do young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults, they are also among the reasons we have a Second Amendment, Constitution, and Country in the first place.”
In August, the trial court stayed the injunction for 30 days to allow Texas time to appeal. Once the court disposes of the state’s motion to withdraw its appeal, the trial court’s injunction will take effect.
The plaintiffs, in this case, were represented by David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson, and William V. Bergstrom of Cooper & Kirk, who are representing FPC and individual gun owners in multiple other legal cases, as well as Texas counsel R. Brent Cooper of Cooper & Scully, P.C.