DOJ Declares Handgun Sales Ban for Adults Under 21 Unconstitutional

The Justice Department announced Friday that it will no longer pursue criminal penalties against federally licensed firearms dealers for selling handguns to otherwise eligible Americans between the ages of 18 and 20.

The major shift follows a new legal opinion from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which concluded that the federal age restriction is incompatible with the Second Amendment under the Supreme Court’s modern firearms jurisprudence.

Federal law has long barred licensed dealers from selling handguns or handgun ammunition to anyone younger than 21. Americans ages 18 to 20, however, have generally been allowed to purchase rifles and shotguns from licensed dealers and, where state law permits, acquire handguns through certain private transactions.

That federal distinction originated with the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, who heads the Office of Legal Counsel, argued that legal adults do not lose their constitutional right to keep and bear arms merely because they have not yet turned 21.

“Eighteen-year-olds may vote, serve on juries, be drafted, and face adult criminal penalties,” Gaiser said in announcing the decision.

The department’s analysis relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and other significant Second Amendment cases.

Under the constitutional framework reinforced by those decisions, once the Second Amendment’s text covers an individual’s conduct, the government must prove that its restriction is consistent with America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

According to the Office of Legal Counsel, the federal government cannot establish a sufficiently comparable historical tradition of denying otherwise law-abiding adults under 21 the ability to purchase firearms.

The historical evidence instead points in the opposite direction. Founding-era militia laws frequently required men beginning at age 18 to serve in the militia and supply their own weapons—undermining the argument that the Founding generation broadly excluded young adults from exercising the right to bear arms.

The Justice Department therefore concluded that federal prosecutors cannot impose criminal penalties on licensed dealers solely for selling handguns to qualified purchasers between 18 and 20.

The opinion does not repeal the relevant statutes or remove them from the United States Code. Only Congress can repeal a federal law, while the judiciary can declare it unconstitutional in a binding ruling.

An Office of Legal Counsel opinion instead determines the executive branch’s legal position and guides how the Justice Department enforces federal law. In practical terms, prosecutors are expected to stop bringing cases against licensed dealers based exclusively on lawful handgun sales to adults in this age group.

Federal courts remain divided over the constitutional question.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the federal restriction violates the Second Amendment, while the 4th Circuit has upheld it. Other appellate courts have also reached competing conclusions when considering comparable state laws affecting firearm purchases by adults under 21.

The Supreme Court has yet to settle definitively whether the federal restriction can survive the constitutional standard articulated in Bruen.

Gun-control organizations quickly condemned the Trump administration’s decision. Everytown Law characterized it as a refusal to enforce an existing public-safety measure, while GIFFORDS criticized the department for declining to defend a restriction enacted by Congress.

The opinion does not give young adults unrestricted access to firearms. Purchasers between 18 and 20 remain subject to federal background checks, and individuals legally prohibited from possessing firearms—such as those with certain felony convictions—remain ineligible.

State-level minimum-age laws are also separate from the federal restriction and are not automatically nullified by the Justice Department’s determination. Those measures will continue to face their own constitutional challenges in court.

The announcement represents the latest effort by President Donald J. Trump’s administration to strengthen federal protection of the Second Amendment. The Justice Department has established a dedicated Second Amendment Section within its Civil Rights Division and recently sued San Jose, California, over the city’s concealed-carry permit fee of nearly $1,600, alleging that the charge unconstitutionally burdens the right to bear arms.

Although the underlying federal statutes remain formally in place, the administration’s opinion produces an immediate and substantial change in enforcement: licensed dealers will no longer face federal prosecution merely for selling handguns to otherwise lawful American adults ages 18 to 20.