US court lifts ban on selling guns to young Americans

A federal judge has struck down a law that for more than half a century has banned licensed gunsmiths from selling guns to young people under 21.

The decision, dated Wednesday, represents a major setback for advocates of better gun control as they try to convince Congress to ban younger people from acquiring assault rifles.

The 1968 law has been the subject of several legal challenges since its adoption but had held up until then. On Wednesday, Federal Judge Robert Payne, who sits in Virginia, ruled that a judgment rendered in June by the United States Supreme Court had changed the situation.

The predominantly conservative High Court ruled that the Constitution protected the right of Americans to carry a gun outside their homes and ruled that the only possible restrictions should be part of the country’s history.

In 2021, firearms caused more than 47,000 deaths in the United States, including 26,000 suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive site, which refers.