NRA v Glass - Under-21 purchase ban

[Euler]

On May 16, the NRA filed a petition for certiorari on its case challenging Florida's state law prohibiting 18-20-year-olds from purchasing firearms. (no docket link yet)

Petition for certiorari said:

...
But the majority below upheld Florida's law anyway, based principally, if not entirely, on the notion that the common law at the Founding made contracts by minors for the purchase of goods -- incidentally including firearms, according to the majority -- "voidable" at the option of the minor. ... That reasoning is unsustainable for multiple independent reasons. The Eleventh Circuit's reliance on this common-law voidability rule ultimately depends on an "economic inference from indirect evidence," rather than any actual historical statute or legal rule directly limiting anyone's acquisition of firearms. ... Nothing about the voidability rule prevented minors from bartering for goods or purchasing them with cash -- or even on credit, if the vendor was willing to take the risk. Moreover, the en banc majority fails to persuasively establish that the Founding-era voidability rule even applied to firearms in the first place. The majority acknowledged that there was a recognized exception covering contracts for "necessaries" ... and the best reading of the historical record is that this category included firearms, at least for 18-to-20-year-olds, given that most states charged Americans in this age group with the legal duty to acquire firearms for militia service.

What is more, even if the majority's interpretation of this common-law contract rule were correct, it is sharply disanalogous to modern age-based gun bans in terms of both the "why" and the "how" of regulation. ... As to the "why," the "right of an infant to avoid his contract" at the Founding was designed "for his protection against his own improvidence and the designs of others" ... -- a purpose totally unlike Florida's asserted goal of "address[ing] the crisis of gun violence" .... And the "burden on the right of armed self-defense" imposed by the two rules ... is likewise different beyond any comparison. The Founding-era rule, even by the en banc majority's lights, only limited the right to keep and bear arms of legal minors -- persons who were not treated as adults for most other purposes and who remained within the care, custody, and protection of their parents. But Florida's law strips the right to acquire firearms from legal adults -- 18-to-20-year-olds who enjoy the practical and legal benefits of adulthood, who are not within the custody or protection of their parents, and who often have families of their own. "Eighteen-to-twenty-one-year-olds in Florida today -- in other words, adults -- are analogous to legal adults at the time of the Founding, not legal minors." ...
...

The 11th Circuit's opinion is based on the ability of people under 21 to void a contract in 1791, because they could claim that they were legally minors, even though they might enter into contracts over 18. (I need to check that historical point.) NRA argues that voidability didn't stop people of that age from bartering (even bargaining) for the purchase of goods in 1791.

I'd argue that it's also not an argument that could be applied today, because people 18-20 cannot void a contract as a minor (except maybe in Washington state, because Washington state).

[SiliconSorcerer]

I'd question if bringing up modern laws  is a good idea. 

But I'm not a lawyer... 

[Euler]

On May 20, the Supreme Court docketed the case.

[Euler]

On June 11, Florida asked the Court to extend the deadline to respond.

Om June 12, the Court extended the deadline to July 21.

[Euler]

On July 10, Florida again asked for an extension to respond.

On July 11, the Court extended the deadline to August 20.

[JTHunter]

On 7/11/2025 at 11:01 PM, Euler said:

On July 10, Florida again asked for an extension to respond.

On July 11, the Court extended the deadline to August 20.

 

"Rinse & repeat".  AGAIN.  🤮 🤬

[Euler]

On August 20, Florida met the (extended) deadline to file the response.

[Euler]

On September 3, the Court scheduled this case for "long conference" later this month.

[Euler]

On September 4, the Court "rescheduled" (i.e., canceled) this case for "long conference."

[Euler]

Petition denied.