Published July 28, 2026 at 5:55 PM ET · Updated July 28, 2026 at 10:28 PM ET
Federal judge upholds Connecticut under-21 handgun purchase restrictions
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⚖ The Constitutional Angle
Heller held the Second Amendment right is not unlimited and noted that conditions on commercial sale remain presumptively lawful. Bruen set the governing test: once the Amendment's text covers the conduct, the government must show its regulation is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. So a court upholding Connecticut's under-21 purchase ban must have found sufficient historical analogue laws restricting firearm acquisition by the young.
District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
Vote: 5-4 · Opinion: Scalia
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use it for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home. The right is not unlimited: the Court noted that longstanding prohibitions (e.g., possession by felons and the mentally ill, carrying in sensitive places, conditions on commercial sale) remain presumptively lawful. D.C.'s ban on handgun possession in the home and its requirement that lawful firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Kevin P. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police 597 U.S. 1 (2022)
Vote: 6-3 · Opinion: Thomas
New York's requirement that applicants demonstrate 'proper cause' — a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community — to obtain an unrestricted public-carry license violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public. The Court held the Second Amendment protects a right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense, and rejected the two-step means-end framework lower courts had applied after Heller.
Precedent facts from the PW Law Library — primary-source verified & independently audited
