“Orderly Implementation”

Judge Katherine Menendez, of the Federal District of Minnesota, has ruled a Minnesota State law barring 18-20-yr-olds from obtaining handgun carry permits in Minnesota to be unconstitutional.

Based on a careful review of the record, the court finds that defendants have failed to identify analogous regulations that show a historical tradition in America of depriving 18- to 20-year-olds the right to publicly carry a handgun for self-defense. As a result, the age requirement prohibiting persons between the ages of 18 and 20 from obtaining such a permit to carry violates the Second Amendment.

She based that argument on the Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v Bruen ruling in which the Court explicitly required a showing of a national history of regulation of the type contemplated in this or that gun control legislation.

What’s of particular interest here, though, is Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s reaction to Menendez’ ruling. He wants the judge to stay her ruling pending a potential State appeal, or in the alternative, a stay for 60 days to allow for its orderly implementation.

The first is common enough and not entirely unreasonable. It’s normal to stay a ruling that has a chance of being overruled on appeal in order to prevent the harm that can be done to the ultimately winning side before it wins the appeal.

The last is utterly disingenuous, though. It doesn’t take 60 days to stop blocking 18-20-yr-olds from exercising their Constitutional rights. It doesn’t take a day to do that, with the possible exception of a Sunday, when legal firearm sellers are closed and might need until Monday to receive the rescission of the State law. After all, nothing has changed in any of the other, still in place, requirements surrounding obtaining a firearm; all that’s happening is the removal of one of those requirements.

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