Loaded Wallet

Court Victory

Something significant happened last month in Minnesota and a lot of people missed it because it wasn’t widely reported. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a unanimous ruling that the state’s ban on issuing concealed carry licenses to young adults is unconstitutional.

Of course, at the time the country was focused on the Republican convention and its aftermath, and the near-fatal attack on Donald Trump.

Worth v. Jacobson is the name of the case, brought by the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and four citizens, Austin Dye, Alex Anderson, Joe Knudsen and Kristin Worth, for whom the case is known.

The 27-page ruling is worth reading. Authored by Circuit Judge Duane Benton, it bluntly notes the Second Amendment “shall not be infringed.”

“Importantly,” the judge observed, “the Second Amendment’s plain text does not have an age limit … Ordinary, law-abiding 18 to 20-year-old Minnesotans are unambiguously members of the people. The Carry Ban … violates the Second Amendment as applied to Minnesota through the Fourteenth Amendment, and, thus, is unconstitutional.”

The case might go to appeal. It might even go to the Supreme Court. It will not go away.

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