Siding with a 19-year-old man who was spotted with a gun in his waistband, a Broward County circuit judge Friday ruled that a state law barring people under age 21 from carrying concealed weapons violates Second Amendment rights.
Judge Frank Ledee issued a nine-page ruling that said Florida’s “prohibition on the concealed carry of firearms by eighteen-to-twenty year olds strips a class of legal adults of their ability to exercise the very right the Constitution guarantees.”
Ledee cited U.S. Supreme Court rulings in recent years that required analyzing the “historical tradition” of firearm regulation when determining whether laws violate the Second Amendment.
“The state has failed to identify Founding-era law that broadly prohibited the concealed carry of firearms by eighteen-to-twenty year olds,” Ledee wrote. “The state also failed to cite to any historical regulation imposing a burden or justification comparable to Florida’s concealed carry ban as applied to eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds.”
— Florida judge strikes down under-21 concealed carry ban as unconstitutional
When did judges get the ability to insert “18” into a law instead of strike it down?