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1 (March 13, 2018)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthzzaeh0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congress na Research Service Informing the leg slative debate since 1914 Can the Government Prohibit 18-Year-Olds from Purchasing Firearms? Michael John Garcia Acting Section Research Manager March 13, 2018 On March 9, 2018, Florida enacted new gun control legislation in the wake of a mass shooting at a Parkland high school by a 19-year-old former student. Shortly after the Florida measure was signed into law, the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed suit in federal court seeking to enjoin a provision of the Florida statute, which renders it a felony for a person under the age of 21 to purchase a firearm. The NRA contends that the provision is an unconstitutional infringement upon the rights of 18-to-20-year-olds to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. Reviewing courts have held that some age-based restrictions on firearms purchases by persons under 21 are permissible, including federal restrictions on commercial dealers selling handguns to persons under 21 and juveniles under the age of 18 possessing a handgun. But Florida's blanket prohibition on 18-to-20-year-olds purchasing any firearm may go further than many measures that reviewing courts have previously upheld, raising the possibility that the NRA's legal challenge to the restriction may clarify jurisprudence on whether and how the Second Amendment applies to persons under 21. In 2008, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms for historically lawful purposes, such as self-defense in the home, placing some constraints upon the federal government's ability to regulate firearms access. Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court concluded that states are similarly barred from infringing upon this right by way of the Fourteenth Amendment. But neither Heller nor McDonald purported to define the scope of the right protected by the Second Amendment, and Justice Scalia's majority opinion in Heller cautioned that the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. The Heller majority further emphasized that the Court's recognition of an individual right to keep and bear arms did not upend many longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by certain categories of people (e.g., felons and the mentally ill). Nor did the Court's ruling necessarily cast doubt upon laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Congressional Research Service 7-5700 CRS Legal Sidebar www.crs.gov LSB10098 Prepared for Members and Committees of Conaress

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