The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a decision allowing 18-year-olds to openly carry guns during emergencies in Pennsylvania.
There were no notable dissents in the Supreme Court’s brief order. It bans people between the ages of 18 and 20 from carrying weapons in public during the declared state of emergency.
The case comes amid major shifts in the legal landscape of firearms following an influential 2022 Supreme Court decision that expanded gun rights. The Supreme Court said all kinds of things firearms restrictions must have a strong basis in history.
In the wake of that ruling, several gun laws, including age restrictions, have been struck down by judges in states such as Minnesota, Virginia and Texas. Pennsylvania’s challengers argued that young people were not prohibited from carrying guns at the time of the nation’s founding, so this should not be the case today.
But the Supreme Court this year issued a new opinion upholding a law intended to do so protect victims of domestic violence. The Supreme Court said Tuesday that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should reconsider the Pennsylvania case in light of that decision.
For their part, officials in Pennsylvania had argued that there is a long tradition of restricting guns to people 21 and older, dating back to the 1850s.
