The video above is a solid breakdown of the 11th Circuit’s ruling on whether 18-to-20-year-olds have Second Amendment rights, and it’s worth your time. What follows is my own read on it from the FFL side of the counter.
I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas. I’ve run this shop since 2017, and rulings like this one show up at my counter as real questions from real customers, usually young ones.
What the panel decided
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that Americans between 18 and 20 don’t have a right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, and it upheld Florida’s law blocking that age group from buying firearms.
That reasoning is hard to square with Heller and Bruen. The Militia Act of 1792, passed a year after the Second Amendment was ratified, required 18-to-20-year-olds to show up with their own firearms for militia duty. You can’t equip yourself for that duty if you have no right to acquire a gun in the first place.
The en banc wrinkle
Here’s where it gets interesting. A judge on the 11th Circuit who wasn’t on the original panel put a hold on the ruling and called for a poll of the full court, asking whether all the active judges (roughly fifteen in that circuit) should rehear the case en banc. That doesn’t happen unless at least one judge thinks the panel got it wrong badly enough to deserve a do-over. If the full court takes it up, they can affirm the panel or reverse it.
There’s also a legislative escape hatch. Florida lawmakers have been weighing a change to state law that would let 18-to-20-year-olds buy firearms again. If that passes, the appeal likely goes moot and the panel decision loses its teeth without anyone having to win the case.
The Bruen standard, briefly
Under Bruen, the question isn’t whether a judge thinks a restriction sounds reasonable. The government has to show a historical tradition of regulating the right the same way, going back to the founding era. For an age-based purchase ban, that means showing 18-to-20-year-olds were barred from owning firearms around 1791. The Militia Act points the opposite direction, and Bruen says ambiguity in the historical record cuts in favor of the right, not the government.
What this means at the gun counter
One thing worth clearing up, because I get asked a lot: federal law already prohibits licensed dealers like me from selling handguns to anyone under 21, in every state. Cases like this one are mostly about long guns and about state laws that go further than that federal floor. Texas has no Florida-style purchase ban, so an 18-year-old can still buy a rifle or shotgun from my shop like anyone else, background check and all. If you’re new to that process, my post on what an FFL dealer actually does walks through it, and if you’re shopping for a first gun in Texas, start here.
As of this writing, the en banc question is still pending, so check the current status of the case before you rely on any of this. I don’t think the panel ruling survives long term, but courts have surprised me before. This isn’t legal advice, just one Texas FFL reading the tea leaves. Questions? Call the shop at 817-393-4000 or email [email protected].
Lance Rankin is the owner and Chief Gunsmith of Western Sport, a family-run Type 07 FFL and Class 3/SOT dealer in Roanoke, Texas, serving shooters since 2007. Born and raised in Texas with over 50 years of experience handling firearms, Lance purchased Western Sport in 2017 and turned his lifelong passion into his profession. He specializes in AR-15 and AR-10 platform rifles, manufactures Western Sport’s own AR-15 line under the Rankin Industries brand, and runs the shop’s in-house Cerakote coating operation. When he’s not behind the counter or the workbench, you’ll find him on his ranch deep into the night, hunting coyotes with an AR-15 and thermal optics. Lance holds an MBA and personally shoots and tests the products Western Sport sells.
