By Henry Ashcroft
WASHINGTON — New York’s two U.S. senators have joined 18 colleagues in demanding that Attorney General Todd Blanche explain why the Justice Department has stopped enforcing a 58-year-old federal law that bars licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to people under 21 — and their letter puts the 2022 Tops Friendly Markets massacre in Buffalo at the center of the argument.
The letter, announced Tuesday by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and also signed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, asks the department to hand over information and documents about the decision by Nov. 16.
“The Trump administration should be doing more to keep guns out of the wrong hands – not less,” Ms. Gillibrand said in a statement. “Refusing to enforce the law that bars dealers from selling handguns to teenagers makes our communities less safe and is a direct surrender to the gun lobby at the expense of American lives.”
What the Justice Department decided
The policy change came Sept. 18, when the department’s Office of Legal Counsel released an opinion concluding that the federal prohibition “may not be enforced against licensed dealers selling handguns to otherwise law-abiding adults ages 18 to 20 consistent with the Second Amendment,” according to the department’s announcement.
The provisions at issue, 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1) and (c)(1), date to the Gun Control Act of 1968. The legal counsel’s office determined that 18- to 20-year-olds are among “the people” protected by the Second Amendment and said it “found no Founding era history or tradition of precluding legal adults from purchasing firearms to protect public safety.” It relied on the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen — a case that began in New York — and later rulings including Wolford v. Lopez.
“Eighteen-year-olds may vote, serve on juries, be drafted, and face adult criminal penalties, including capital punishment,” said Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, who heads the office. “The Constitution protects the people’s right to keep and bear arms. The Department of Justice may not constitutionally seek to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns to law-abiding adults who, in nearly every other relevant respect, are members of the political community.”
The senators’ case — and Buffalo
The senators argue that the department has, in effect, repealed a statute Congress never repealed.
“Congress enacted this prohibition as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, clearly stating that ‘it shall be unlawful’ for an FFL to sell or transfer a handgun to a person under age 21,” they wrote, referring to federal firearms licensees. “Nearly 60 years later, the Department’s decision to stop enforcing this provision comes not because Congress repealed or amended the law, but because the executive branch has independently concluded that these provisions are unconstitutional.”
They point out that the department’s own opinion acknowledges the constitutionality of age-based restrictions has “deeply divided members of the federal bench.”
And they cite the toll of young shooters. “The public safety implications of this decision are clear,” the letter says. “Numerous mass shootings have been committed by perpetrators between the ages of 18 and 20, including the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old fatally shot 19 students and two teachers and injured 18 others, as well as the shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York; an Indianapolis FedEx facility and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.”
The Buffalo gunman, who killed 10 people at the Jefferson Avenue Tops on May 14, 2022, was 18 and used a semiautomatic rifle rather than a handgun. Weeks later, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a package of gun bills that included a requirement that buyers of semiautomatic rifles obtain a license — which in New York requires being 21 — closing the gap that had allowed the purchase.
What changes in New York
Little, in practical terms, for now. New York already requires a pistol license to buy or possess a handgun, and state law generally sets the minimum age for that license at 21. The federal shift matters more in states without such a requirement — and for the principle the senators are defending: whether an administration can stop enforcing a criminal statute on its own constitutional reading.
The senators asked the department to explain how the decision was reached, what communications officials had with the gun industry, and what the change means for enforcement of other federal firearms laws. “This decision raises serious questions about the Department’s execution of federal law, its communications with members of the gun industry, and the implications for the enforcement of federal firearms laws nationwide,” they wrote.
The other signers are Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Cory Booker, Chris Coons, Dick Durbin, Mazie Hirono, Tim Kaine, Mark Kelly, Andy Kim, Amy Klobuchar, Ed Markey, Chris Murphy, Alex Padilla, Jack Reed, Adam Schiff, Elizabeth Warren, Peter Welch and Sheldon Whitehouse — all Democrats.
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