Stephen Halbrook | 7.22.2024 9:36 PM

Anyone hoping that the Supreme Court's Rahimi decision (which I analyzed here) would represent a roll-back in recognition of Second Amendment rights must be in for a surprise with the Eighth Circuit's decision in Worth v. Jacobson. Authored by Judge Duane Benton, the court affirmed the decision of the district court and held that Minnesota's limitation of gun carry permits to persons 21 years old and over violates the right to bear arms of persons aged 18-20.

This is the first decision by a circuit court of appeals, mind you, to rely on Rahimi, which was rendered on June 21. Several courts have put off action in Second Amendment cases while awaiting the decision in Rahimi. While Worth liberally relied on Heller and Bruen, the following focuses on the extent to which Rahimi is already a new sword in defense of Second Amendment rights.

Plaintiffs in the 18-20 age group along with firearm associations mounted a facial challenge to the Minnesota statute. The court first cited Rahimi for the proposition that such challengers must "establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid." That rule was the death knell for Mr. Rahimi's challenge to the federal law banning possession of firearms by a person subject to a court order finding him to be a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner. But it would have no bearing in Worth. Here's why.

Minnesota argued that at the Founding, states restricted guns in the hands of "irresponsible or dangerous groups, such as 18 to 20-year-olds." (In reality, no state banned carrying guns by that age group.) Quoth Rahimi: "[W]e reject the Government's contention that Rahimi may be disarmed simply because he is not 'responsible.'" That concept is too vague and elusive.

A historical analogue that "remotely resembles" the carry ban, the court noted, will not suffice, then looked to Rahimi for the test: "A court must ascertain whether the new law is 'relevantly similar' to laws that our tradition is understood to permit[.]" As Rahimi added:........

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