9 thoughts on “Fourth Circuit Strikes Down Under 21 Restrictions on Handguns

  1. And yet alcohol restrictions stand?

    I think the court is correct in that the rights vest at 18, but they still pick and choose which rights vest.

    I’m betting this hits SCOTUS in the near future.Report

    1. I think that it would hinge on the specific wording of the 21st. The 21st was *NOT* “the 18th Amendment is hereby repealed”. It left a *LOT* of wiggle room in there and I want to say that each state’s drinking age is 21 because each state did that… I seem to recall when Louisiana? I want to say? Alabama? I don’t recall… had a drinking age of 19 and Liddy Dole withheld Federal Highway Funds on that basis.

      Let’s check the google…

      I slaughtered that.

      It was South Dakota and challenges to that sort of thing went all the way to the Supreme Court.

      South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court considered the limitations that the Constitution places on the authority of the United States Congress when Congress uses its authority to influence the individual states in areas of authority normally reserved to the states. The Court upheld the constitutionality of a federal statute that withheld federal funds from states whose legal drinking age did not conform to federal policy.

      Maybe it oughta be overturned with our new understanding of the government in the current year.

      (But I think that about a *LOT* of cases.)Report

          1. Thanks for digging that out. I’d hoped my link would have shown the content because I don’t think anybody here is going to clink an unidentified link from me.

            Also every time some points out how the prohibition amendments have continuing importance beyond their appearance, I feel like a Kelso.Report

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