BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition have filed a respondents’ brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Pennsylvania’s appeal of a lower court ruling recognizing that young adults in the 18-20 age group enjoy the Second Amendment right to bear arms. They are asking the high court to deny certiorari.
The case is known as Paris v. Lara. SAF and FPC are represented by attorneys Joshua Prince of Bechtelsville, PA and David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson, John D. Ohlendorf and William V. Bergstrom at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C.
In explaining their opposition, SAF and FPC note, “The issue—whether adults between 18 and 21 years old have full Second Amendment rights—is undoubtedly important. But the lower courts have had no trouble deciding it under the Bruen standard and are in broad agreement. The courts of appeals are 2–0 post-Bruen in holding that 18-to-20-year-olds have full Second Amendment rights and the district courts are (to the best of Respondents’ knowledge) currently 4–1 on the same issue, with several appeals (and one en banc reconsideration) still pending. The Court should not grant certiorari to review at this stage but should permit the ordinary percolation process to continue and reserve its intervention for the point at which, if it comes at all, the courts of appeals are actually divided.”
“The case doesn’t deserve Supreme Court review,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris is trying to create a dispute where none exists, and he is using old case law which was essentially nullified by the Bruen ruling in 2022. Prior to the Bruen decision, courts applied intermediate scrutiny and ‘interest-balancing’ to such cases, but the high court has rejected that strategy as ‘one step too far.’ Here, the commissioner is highlighting cases that are irrelevant.”
Gottlieb noted this is the third SAF case to reach the Supreme Court level this year. The Court has granted certiorari to the VanDerStok case, and the Snopes case challenging Maryland’s semi-auto ban is pending certiorari. Paris v. Lara is third in line, he said.