Texas Withdraws Appeal To Ban 18 To 20-Year-Olds From Carrying Handguns In Public

Texas has withdrawn an appeal aimed at fighting a lower court decision that ruled  preventing 18 to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public is unconstitutional, according to a Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) press release.

After initially filing the appeal against U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman’s ruling, Texas has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to withdraw the state’s appeal, according to the release. FPC, along with two women under age 21, were the plaintiffs in the original ruling, and following the withdrawal, praised Texas for “doing the right thing.”

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw withdrew the appeal, according to NBC affiliate ClicktoHouston.

“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,” Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC’s senior attorney for constitutional litigation, said in the press release. “Young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults.”

When the appeal was initially filed, gun rights activists fought the decision, with the President of the National Association for Gun Rights Dudley Brown saying,”Once again, government officials in the state of Texas are proven to be anti-gun stooges,” according to ClicktoHouston. Texas did not list a reason for removing the appeal.

The withdrawal follows a November ruling by U.S. District Judge David Counts who ruled that banning someone under a protective order from carrying a gun violated the Second Amendment, according to ClicktoHouston. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen Supreme Court decision in June was used as precedent.

“The court said that the way that you’ve got to decide the constitutionality of modern-day gun laws … is not by looking at modern policy considerations, but rather looking at historical laws and trying to analogize specific legal traditions from a very different time and place,” Eric Ruben, an assistant professor of law at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law said, according to ClicktoHouston.

The Texas Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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