Texas Government Drops Appeal Against Ruling that Allows 18-Year-Olds to Carry Firearms

Last week, Texas decided to drop its appeal against a ruling that a United States District Judge made on August 25, 2022. This ruling found that the state’s prohibition on 18-20 year old individuals carrying firearms in public to be unconstitutional. 

Per a WFAA report, US District Judge Mark Pittman issued a ruling against Texas’ law preventing individuals under 21 from carrying firearms.

Pittman stayed the ruling for 30 days to give Texas the chance to appeal the ruling.

AWR Hawkins of Breitbart News reported that on September 27, 2022, the Texas Tribune covered how Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an appeal notice and Second Amendment advocates immediately opposed the appeal.

On December 21, 2022, the Tribune reported that Texas dropped the appeal campaign and “will no longer fight to ban 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying handguns in public.”

Cory J. Wisniewski, the Firearms Policy Coalition’s senior attorney for constitutional litigation, said the following about Texas’s decision to reverse its appeal: “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. Young adults have the same constitutionally protected right to bear arms as all other adults.”

Texas is one of the nation’s most pro-gun states. According to Guns & Ammo magazine’s Best States for Gun Owners rankings, Texas is ranked in 10th place. It has only improved its pro-gun profile after it passed Constitutional Carry in 2021. With this new ruling, Texas’ pro-gun profile is further solidified. 

Now, the next step will be for Texas to start fully nullifying federal gun control legislation. Texas can’t afford to be complacent against an increasingly predatory federal government. Resistance is the best defense against unconstitutional encroachments on our individual liberties.

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