Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas, challenging the Department of Justice’s de facto waiting periods for NICS background checks on adults who are not yet 21.
ICYMI GOA and @GunFoundation sued the government yesterday!
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) May 13, 2023
Again. 🔥
⁰The Cornyn-Murphy imposed waiting period for 18-20 year olds is a tyrannical attempt to disarm young gun owners. https://t.co/reGAzO5MVs
This new policy is a result of the Cornyn-Murphy gun control package passed last summer, which now imposes unconstitutional waiting periods on young adults. A NICS background check for these individuals now requires a review of juvenile justice records, state mental health records, and those from local law enforcement where the buyer resides. This review is in addition to those records already held by the FBI NICS System, and because those state and local agencies are not equipped or prepared to provide this information in a timely manner, young gun buyers are simply forced to wait with no recourse, which is a clear violation of their Second Amendment rights.
Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President, issued the following statement:
“GOA repeatedly warned legislators and the public how this would grossly violate young Americans’ Constitutional rights, and yet Texas Senator John Cornyn compromised away those rights anyway. Now we see young adults frequently and routinely being denied their right to purchase a firearm in a timely manner, and this right delayed is unjustly a right denied. Compromise is no way to legislate when dealing with people’s God-given rights.”
Sam Paredes, on behalf of the Board for GOF, added:
“We have worked hard since this gun control bill passed to document and compile many of the compelling cases where people were ridiculously delayed in purchasing a firearm, in some cases for weeks! This only goes to show how ineffective the background check system really is, and instead of proposing real solutions to ensure that We the People can protect ourselves from dangerous criminals, compromise Cornyn and a handful of anti-gun Republicans teamed up with the anti-gun legislator in chief, Chris Murphy, to double down on an ineffective policy to further infringe on our rights.”
This lawsuit was first covered by Fox News, read more here.
This had happened two days earlier.
“US Prohibition Against 18-to-20-Year-Olds Buying Handguns Tossed”
- Right to purchase guns protected by Second Amendment
- Young adults are ‘the people’ under the amendment
The US government’s prohibition on 18-to-20-year-olds buying handguns violates the Second Amendment and “cannot stand,” a federal judge in Virginia ruled.
The right to purchase a handgun falls under right to “keep and bear arms,” and young adults are among “the people” protected by the Second Amendment, Judge Robert E. Payne of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at Richmond said Wednesday.
Restricting the right of 18-to-20-year-olds to buy handguns, via an interlocking collection of federal law and regulations, isn’t supported by the nation’s history and tradition, Payne said. Bloomberg Law
