Massachusetts Supreme Court Upholds Carry Ban for Adults Under 21

Gun control advocates bristle when you accuse them of treating the Second Amendment as a second-class right. They’ll try to argue that no, there are limits on all rights, and all they want are some “common sense” regulations. Never mind the fact that I’ve yet to see a policy proposal that was anti-gun be rejected by these people. Still, they’ll tell you they’re not treating it as a second-class right.

And yet, legal adults are barred from exercising it in Massachusetts, and that has now been upheld by the state’s top court.

MASSACHUSETTS’S LAW PREVENTING people under 21-years-old from obtaining a license to carry handguns or large capacity firearms is constitutional, the state’s highest court ruled on Tuesday. But two justices dissented, arguing the matter should have been sent back down to a lower court for more detailed expert testimony and briefs.

Mikai Thomson, who was a passenger in a car that ran a red light, was arrested in December 2021 after he fled police and discarded a semiautomatic handgun. Because the 20-year-old Thomson had no license to carry, he was charged with and convicted of carrying a firearm without a license.

Despite never applying for a license, Thomson challenged the age restriction in his specific case and on broader grounds. It would have been futile for him to apply, since the law prevented him from being licensed, and the regulation unconstitutionally diminished the Second Amendment to a “second-class right” by depriving adults under 21 from carrying, Thomson’s lawyers argued.

I’m sorry. The fact that he didn’t apply for a permit that he didn’t meet the requirements for in the first place seems completely irrelevant.

Look, I’m not saying that Thomson is a paragon of virtue. Running from police is a bad look, especially over a minor traffic violation, and ditching the gun is not the act of a man looking to fight for his gun rights. Still, there aren’t any other criminal charges presented here, such as felon in possession, so he should have been able to get a permit. It’s not a stretch.

The court essentially argued that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bruen that age-based licensing laws are constitutional, and that’s true as far as it went. However, I don’t recall them saying a thing about which adults are acceptable to cut off from their God-given rights.

Saying minors can’t get permits is one thing, but adults like Thomson can and should be a different matter, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a historical precedent for that.

And the dissenting judges seem to believe similarly.

Justice Scott Kafker dissented, joined by Justice Dalila Wendlandt. In the 28-page dissent, Kafker took issue with the majority’s analysis, especially when three appeals courts decisions struck down policies in other states that restricted carrying firearms by those between 18- and 21-years old.

Exactly.

The analogs used to defend this all deal with actual minors. These were people who weren’t considered adults. That’s an important distinction simply because Thomson was and is an adult. In fact, he was charged as an adult for carrying a gun without a license. 

Unfortunately, until the Supreme Court rules, we’re not likely to see any justice for this young man.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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