Texas appears to have given up its fight to prevent 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public, The Texas Tribune reported.
The law in Texas had not allowed most 18- to 20-year-olds to get a license to carry a handgun or carrying a handgun for self-defense outside their home, according to the news outlet.
Two plaintiffs between 18 and 20, along with the Firearms Policy Coalition Inc., had challenged the law in court.
In August, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Pittman ruled in their favor, saying the Second Amendment does not specify age limits and protects adults under 21.
The state had filed a notice of appeal in September.
But now Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw has withdrawn the appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The department and the Texas Attorney General’s office could not be immediately reached for comment by the Tribune.
But the Firearms Policy Coalition hailed the latest development.
“We applaud Texas for doing the right thing and accepting the district court’s ruling against its law prohibiting 18- to-20-year-old adults from carrying firearms in public,” said Cody Wisniewski, the coalition’s senior attorney for constitutional litigation. “Young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults.”
According to CNN, after the court’s ruling earlier this year, Wisniewski had said: "Texas cannot point to a single founding era law that prohibited 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying a functional firearm for self-defense, because not only did no such law exist, but those individuals are an important reason why we have a Bill of Rights in the first place. And young people have just as much a right to keep and bear arms in public as adults over the age of 21."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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