The Justice Department dropped its appeal defending a federal handgun ban on adults under 21 after its own lawyers concluded the restriction violates the Second Amendment.
Federal lawyers told the Fifth Circuit they are walking away from the fight over a law that barred licensed dealers from selling handguns to legal adults ages 18 to 20. The move followed a September opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that found the statute cannot stand under current Supreme Court precedent.
In a filing this week, the government asked the appeals court to dismiss the case and said it will not enforce the challenged rules against anyone, anywhere. That non-enforcement stance, the department argued, leaves no live dispute for the judges to decide.
The Daily Caller reported the Justice Department moved under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42(b)(2) to voluntarily dismiss its appeal, with each side bearing its own costs. Plaintiffs’ counsel consented.
The shift traces to a Sept. 17, 2026, memo. The Office of Legal Counsel answered a question from the attorney general and concluded that Sections 922(b)(1) and (c)(1) of federal law, plus the regulations that implement them, clash with the Second Amendment as read in the Supreme Court’s Bruen and Wolford decisions.
Those sections had made it a crime for a federally licensed dealer to sell a handgun to a person under 21. Long guns were treated differently. The age cutoff left 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds able to buy rifles and shotguns from dealers in many circumstances, but not handguns.
The government’s brief put the OLC finding in plain terms.
In its filing with the Fifth Circuit, the Justice Department stated:
“On September 17, 2026, in response to a question from the Attorney General, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) determined that Sections 922(b)(1) and (c)(1), along with their implementing regulations, are inconsistent with the Second Amendment,”
The same brief added that OLC concluded the challenged restrictions “may not be enforced to impose criminal penalties on dealers who sell handguns” to persons between the ages of 18 and 21.
From there, the department drew a direct line to mootness. Because the executive branch will not enforce the provisions, it said, the controversy is over.
The brief declared:
“In light of that determination, this dispute is now moot,”
It went further. The Justice Department’s determination that it will not enforce the challenged provisions against anyone, anywhere, “demonstrates that there is no longer a live controversy,” the filing said. The court “need not, and should not, address the scope of relief questions that otherwise would have been presented.” Even if the case were not moot, the OLC opinion “demonstrates that there is no basis for expanding the permanent injunction in the manner plaintiffs request.”
The OLC memo did not hide the contradiction built into the old age rule. It noted that federal law already treats 18-year-olds as adults for some of the heaviest civic burdens.
The memo observed:
“Our laws deem an eighteen-year-old ‘mature enough to be drafted, vote, serve as a juror, and be sentenced to death.’ One such eighteen-year-old represented the United States at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, shooting skeet,”
It then drove the point home with a concrete example. The same young adult who competed for the United States would have faced a federal felony if a licensed dealer sold her a handgun while she studied at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The memo continued:
“Yet, due to statutes predicated on concerns over an eighteen-year-old’s ability to handle a pistol as a responsible adult, it would have been a federal felony if a licensed dealer had sold her such a firearm before she left or after she returned to her studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.”
That is the core of the constitutional problem the Office of Legal Counsel identified. The government already trusts 18-year-olds with the vote, jury service, military service, and capital punishment. A blanket dealer ban on handgun sales to the same age group does not fit the Second Amendment framework the Supreme Court has set out.
The case began in November 2020 as Reese v. ATF and is also known as Firearms Policy Coalition v. ATF. Plaintiffs challenged the federal young-adult handgun sales ban. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was the named defendant agency.
A federal district court first granted summary judgment to the Biden administration. The Fifth Circuit reversed that decision. On remand, the district court ruled for the plaintiffs in January and left a permanent injunction in place. The government appealed.
That appeal is what the Justice Department has now moved to end. The motion was straightforward.
The government wrote:
“Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42(b)(2), the government respectfully moves to voluntarily dismiss its appeal in this case, with each party to bear its own costs,”
It also told the court that “Counsel for plaintiffs have authorized us to represent that they consent to this motion.”
The Firearms Policy Coalition flagged the filings on Oct. 5. The group said the Justice Department had filed both a motion to dismiss its appeal and a response brief arguing the case is moot because the federal government “will not enforce the challenged provisions against anyone, anywhere.”
By declaring the provisions unenforceable for criminal penalties on dealers, and by stating it will not enforce them against anyone, anywhere, the department removed the practical stake that kept the appeal alive. Plaintiffs had pressed questions about the breadth of injunctive relief. The government told the Fifth Circuit those questions no longer need answers.
The result is a quiet end to a multi-year challenge. No new statute had to pass. No new Supreme Court argument was required. An internal legal opinion, issued in response to the attorney general, led the executive branch to stop defending and stop enforcing the age-based handgun sales rule at issue.
Adults 18 to 20 already shoulder adult legal duties. The Office of Legal Counsel recognized that the dealer handgun ban treated them as second-class when it came to a core Second Amendment right. The Justice Department’s decision to drop the appeal and stand down on enforcement follows that conclusion.
When the government finally admits a gun restriction cannot survive the Constitution, the right response is to stop enforcing it, not to keep fighting for a ban the law no longer supports.
