A recent ruling by Judge Thomas Kleeh, appointed by former President Donald Trump and chief judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, has overturned the Biden administration’s attempt to prevent adults aged 18 to 20 from purchasing handguns.
This decision emerged from the case of Steven Robert Brown and Benjamin Weekley, who were prohibited from buying guns under the administration’s directive.
The ruling said that “Plaintiffs’ conduct — the purchase of handguns — ‘fall[s] [within] the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command’ and the challenged statutes and regulations are not ‘consistent with the Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation,’” and that a rule barring Brown and Weekley from buying handguns was “facially unconstitutional and as applied to Plaintiffs.”
The decision relied heavily on the standard set by the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. vs. Bruen that required any gun control law to have its roots in the historical tradition of firearms regulation.
Kleeh noted that under Bruen, ‘‘To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest.” He added that ‘‘the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historic tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”
Hellbound and Down 