ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Do young adults under 21 years of age enjoy ALL rights enumerated in the Constitution? The answer depends on which jurisdiction you live in, and any equivalence only ever centers around one right in particular, the Second Amendment.
Despite the fact that young adults are barred from expressing any other right, some courts continue to hold that they can be prohibited from keeping and bearing arms, as Maryland’s Appellate Court did in its July 2 ruling in Maryland v. Fields.
In its 40-page decision, the three-judge panel, including Judges Graeff, Tang, and Beachley, overturned the district court’s judgment in which it dismissed charges against the defendant based upon a Second Amendment challenge under Bruen.
The case centers around a then-20-year-old Terrell Henry Fields, who was charged in 2019 with drug and firearm offenses, including “possession of a regulated firearm while under the age of 21.” Interestingly, the state dropped the three drug-related charges, but continued from 2019 to 2022 to prosecute the three firearms-related charges.
On June 24, 2022, following the landmark Bruen decision, Mr. Fields moved to dismiss the charges, citing Bruen’s invalidation of “may issue” permitting schemes that had subjective standards, such as the state’s requirement to show “special need for self-defense.”
To its credit, the district court found the Maryland “may issue” statute unconstitutional under Bruen, characterizing it as “a prohibition that violates the Second Amendment,” and also concluded that the ban on firearms possession for persons under 21 was invalid because those individuals “are part of the people who the Second Amendment protects.”
The court granted the motion to dismiss the charges, and on June 30 2022, the state appealed. In the meantime, the court delayed the case to hear a related decision in a case called Fooks. The court then heard oral arguments this year, on February 6, 2026.
In its decision, the court comes down squarely on the side of the state, upholding the state’s argument that there’s no constitutional violation when disarming this portion of the adult population.
Amazingly, the court came to this conclusion after briefly reviewing Heller, McDonald, Bruen, Rahimi, and even the recent Hemani decision, although it selectively picked the portions of certain decisions that it could use to further its favored interpretation.
The court noted that post-Bruen, the Maryland legislature updated the statute to remove the “good and substantial reason” requirement (though the law is still full of subjectivity as written).
In looking for a historical analogue under which it could disarm Mr. Fields, the court took the weasel approach, stating they “assume without deciding that [individuals under 21] are part of ‘the people’ and are therefore covered by the [Second] Amendment’s text.”
It referenced, among other cases, the “particularly persuasive” March 2025 decision by the Eleventh Circuit in NRA v. Bondi, upholding Florida’s prohibition on firearms purchase by individuals under 21 years of age.
The court concludes that the Maryland statute being challenged “…is consistent with the nation’s regulatory history and tradition with respect to the rights of those 18 to 20 years of age to keep and bear arms,” adding “it limits access to individuals under the age of 21 because they lack the judgment and reason required to safely and responsibly purchase and possess firearms.”
Finally, the court resolves the challenge to the permitting scheme from a severability perspective, that is, by severing or removing the part of the law that was unconstitutional under Bruen, but still prosecuting Mr. Fields for carrying a handgun without a permit. Here the court concludes that the bad part of the law was severable, “leaving in place a permitting scheme that made appellee’s conduct criminal.”
Curiously, the Supreme Court has declined to hear several cases on the topic of gun bans for adults under 21, including a June 18 denial for McCoy v. ATF and a June 18 denial in West Virginia Citizens Defense League v. ATF. On June 30, the Supreme Court also denied cert in Bivens v. Second Amendment Foundation, et al., a case addressing the same issue.
Despite numerous courts finding such infringements constitutional, to our knowledge, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has not yet engaged in any cases addressing core under-21 restrictions, though it has advanced affirmative action in many other Second Amendment issues.
