A federal judge in Virginia ruled that the U.S. government's ban on 18- to 20-year-olds buying handguns violates the Second Amendment.

Judge Robert E. Payne of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at Richmond ruled that the Second Amendment's stated right to “keep and bear arms,” which applies to "the people," includes young adults. He wrote that the government's age restriction on handgun purchases is without precedent in U.S. history.

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Payne argued that the government failed to provide evidence of any “age-based restrictions on the purchase or sale of firearms from the colonial era, Founding, or Early Republic.”

He dismissed two examples provided by the government, restrictions against minors buying firearms in Alabama and Tennessee in 1856. He wrote that the laws didn't define “minor,” and “it is unclear to whom exactly they applied.”

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The case, Fraser v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, stemmed from a May 2022 incident. John "Corey" Fraser was denied the ability to purchase a Glock 19x handgun due to his age. He was joined by three other plaintiffs with similar situations, all of whom were above 18 and below 21.

They argued that they were all "law-abiding, responsible adult citizens who are otherwise qualified to own a handgun and but for the laws at issue, they would purchase a new handgun and handgun ammunition from a federally-licensed firearm dealer," the ruling read.