Everytown for Gun Safety Condemns Reckless Department of Justice Opinion Greenlighting Handgun Sales to Individuals Under 21 

NEW YORK – The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel today released a dangerous legal opinion claiming that the life-saving federal law prohibiting individuals under the age of 21 from purchasing handguns from licensed dealers is unconstitutional and may not be enforced. This opinion is only the latest Trump Administration effort to gut critical federal gun safety laws through unilateral executive action. 

“The math here is simple: 18- to 20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of people 21 and older, which is why more than 80% of Americans want 21 to be the minimum age to buy a gun,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Trump’s MAGA DOJ is handing the gun industry something it could never win in Congress or at the ballot box, and America will pay for it in lives lost and communities shattered.”

“When the Department of Justice refuses to defend a constitutional, life-saving law, it sends a chilling message to law enforcement across the country. Federal prosecutors nationwide will stop holding illegal sellers of handguns to 18-to-20 year olds accountable if they know the DOJ has pulled the rug out from under them,” said Eric Tirschwell, executive director of Everytown Law. “Abandoning protections that target the highest-risk age group for handgun violence isn’t just an unconscionable surrender of public safety – it is a dangerous dereliction of duty.”

Just last month, under the new leadership of Attorney General Todd Blanche, DOJ decided to not seek a court order to defend the National Firearms Act of 1934 in court while appeals continue. Just this week, reporting indicates that President Trump has ordered the Justice Department to completely abandon this appeal. Earlier this year, the Department issued a different legal opinion declaring that a 99-year-old law banning the mailing of handguns through the U.S. Mail to be unconstitutional.  

DOJ’s reckless opinion comes against the backdrop of a clear lower court split on this issue: the Fourth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have upheld age restrictions as constitutional, while the Third, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits have ruled in favor of gun lobby challenges. The Eleventh Circuit decision is particularly notable: the court upheld Florida’s restriction on selling guns to those under 21 by a vote of 8 to 4, in an opinion authored by leading conservative Chief Judge Pryor and joined by two of President Trump’s appointees – and the Supreme Court declined to review the case. 

Research shows that 18- to 20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of people 21 years and older. Firearms are the leading cause of death for young people aged 18 to 20, and the firearm suicide rate among this group has increased 31% in the last decade. A 2025 JAMA Pediatrics report found that “permissive firearm laws contributed to thousands of excess firearm deaths among children living in states with permissive policies” in the years since the Supreme Court allowed Second Amendment challenges to state gun laws.

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