Federal lawsuit challenges Pa. age requirement to be 21 to obtain a license to carry

Three young adults, including one from Verona, are suing the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner because they say state statutes prevent them from legally carrying and transporting firearms.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Pittsburgh with the support of two national nonprofits, asks that statutes requiring a person to be 21 to obtain a license to carry firearms be declared unconstitutional under the Second and Fourteenth amendments.

The plaintiffs in the suit — Verona’s Madison M. Lara, Logan Miller of Boyertown in Berks County and Sophia Knepley of Denver in Lancaster County — are all gun owners under 21. They also are members of the Sacramento, Calif.-based Firearms Policy Coalition, one of two national nonprofits that helped file the lawsuit. The other nonprofit, the Second Amendment Foundation, is based in the state of Washington.

A similar complaint also has been filed in California. The groups are seeking other plaintiffs across the country for additional suits.

“We’ve filed this action because the situation in Pennsylvania smacks of discrimination against young adults in the 18- to 20-year-old age group,” Alan M. Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, said in a statement.

“Young adults can join the military, where they might be assigned to carry firearms all over the world. They can get married, start businesses, enter into contracts and yet they are not considered mature enough to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. That’s nonsense,” Gottlieb said.

The lawsuit names Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Robert Evanchick as the only defendant. State police declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The 44-page complaint said that, at the time the Second Amendment was ratified, young adults between the ages of 18 and 20 often were required to keep and bear arms.

“Only dangerous persons have historically been deprived of the right to bear arms,” the lawsuit said. “Peaceable persons have always been free to carry arms for self-defense and other lawful purposes.”

The plaintiffs also want to be able to legally transport firearms.

The complaint said the state police commissioner “contends that even the most law-abiding 18- to 20-year-olds are categorically too immature and irresponsible to transport and carry firearms, even though they would, overnight, become mature and responsible enough if they were to join the military.”

Adam Winkler, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and author of “Gun Fight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” said, although that argument might be sympathetic, the regimented nature of the military and when a soldier can use a firearm is different than an 18-year-old taking it to a restaurant or on the street.

Research, he noted, shows it takes until the mid- to late 20s for a person’s brain to fully mature.

Like Pennsylvania, most states continue to use 21 for the minimum age required for a license to carry.

Winkler believes it is unlikely the new lawsuit will be successful given the current state of American law.

For the past 12 years, he said, there has been “an aggressive period of litigation” over gun restrictions — stemming from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which found that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.

However, he noted that with the possible shift of the U.S. Supreme Court if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, that could change.

“I could see age-based restrictions on guns capturing the court’s attention one day,” Winkler said. “The Supreme Court may be shifting.”