GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION TASK FORCE CHAIR THOMPSON, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER RASKIN AND REP. MCBATH LEAD 174 MEMBERS CALLING ON DOJ TO ENFORCE YOUTH HANDGUN LAW

Washington – Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Chair Mike Thompson, Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, and Rep. Lucy McBath lead a bipartisan letter with 174 members calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce the 1968 law which prohibits licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to 18-20-year-olds.

“DOJ’s decision to block the enforcement of the 1968 law which prohibits 18-20-year-olds from buying handguns is unconstitutional, and will make our communities, and especially our schools less safe,” said Mike Thompson. “It is outrageous that DOJ would unilaterally overturn the law and allow an 18-year-old high school student to buy a handgun, buy a silencer, and have them shipped to their house without ever leaving their basement. That is just wrong.”

“For generations, the landmark provision prohibiting the sale of handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds has saved countless lives. Yet, now, the Trump Department of Justice has released a baseless opinion that this provision is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. This reckless decision will allow young adults to obtain the firearms most often used in crime, jeopardizing public safety and putting those most at risk for gun violence in greater danger. Brady thanks Chair Thompson and Ranking Members Raskin and McBath for leading the effort to oppose this senseless decision and for their dedication to protecting America’s youth from gun violence,” said Mark Collins, Director of Federal Policy, Brady.

“The math here is simple: 18- to 20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of people 21 and older, which is why more than 80% of Americans want 21 to be the minimum age to buy a gun,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Trump’s MAGA DOJ is handing the gun industry something it could never win in Congress or at the ballot box, and America will pay for it in lives lost and communities shattered.”

"The Office of Legal Counsel has no authority to erase a federal gun law and put more handguns in the hands of teenagers. This decision disregards clear evidence that minimum-age laws save lives,” said GIFFORDS Executive Director EmmaBrown. “The Trump administration must immediately reverse this dangerous action. I thank Representatives Jamie Raskin, Lucy McBath, and Mike Thompson, as well as the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, for their leadership in defending this lifesaving law.”

The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) passed the House of Representatives and the Senate with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Johnson in response to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and others, and to address a startling increase in gun crimes. For almost six decades, the GCA as a whole has saved countless lives by helping keep firearms out of the hands of high-risk groups, including not only Americans in the 18-to-20-year-old cohort but people who pose a danger to themselves or others. Expanding access to concealable firearms like handguns creates a significant public safety risk as the majority of gun crimes involve handguns.

The full text of the letter can be found HERE and below. 

Dear Attorney General Blanche,

We urge the Department of Justice to immediately rescind its opinion illegally declaring that a 1968 law prohibiting the sale of handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds by federally licensed firearms dealers “may not be enforced.”

Since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 some 58 years ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has faithfully enforced it according to clear congressional intent and defended its constitutionality. The Supreme Court has never questioned, much less invalidated, this statute. Its policy rationale—that 18-to-20-year-olds lack the cognitive judgment required to safely own and handle handguns has only grown more compelling with advancements in our understanding of brain development over the last six decades and the record of gun violence already associated with that age group.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) passed the House of Representatives and the Senate with bipartisan support, and was signed into law by President Johnson in response to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and others, and to address a startling increase in gun crimes. For almost six decades, the GCA as a whole has saved countless lives by helping keep firearms out of the hands of high-risk groups, including not only Americans in the 18-to-20-year-old cohort but people who pose a danger to themselves or others.

DOJ’s sudden epiphany that this essential law, which has been enforced by Democratic and Republican Attorneys General continuously for more than a half-century, is unconstitutional would override the judgment of the last 29 Congresses, which have staunchly stood by the law. Your personal reinterpretation would now allow 18-to-20-year-olds to purchase easily concealable handguns, a kind disproportionately used in violent crimes.

We already have a problem with young men in the 18-20 year range obtaining a firearm from family, friends or the criminal underground and using it to conduct a mass shooting. Millions of Americans remember when a 20-year-old gunman in Newtown, Connecticut killed 27 people, overwhelmingly children, in the deadliest elementary school massacre in American history. According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, one in eight mass shooters was between 18 and 20 years old.[1] Indeed, 18-to-20-year-olds have already been shown to be responsible for a disproportionate share of school shootings. [2] In fact, they comprise just 4 percent of the US population, but account for 17 percent of known gun homicide offenders generally. [3]

Teens and young adults are also already at higher risk for firearm suicide. Limiting access to firearms has been a proven and effective way of lowering rates of firearm suicide. One study demonstrated that when states restricted handgun sales to individuals under the age of 21, the firearm suicide rate declined 12 percent among 18-to-20-year-olds. [4]

Expanding access to concealable firearms like handguns creates a significant public safety risk as the majority of gun crimes involve handguns. FBI crime statistics from 2020 to 2024 show that 92 percent of firearms identified in murders were handguns, 6 percent were rifles, and 2 percent were shotguns. The lack of legal access to handguns by people under the age of 21 explains why crime guns traced to 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds remain relatively low compared to the next age cohort of 21-, 22-, and 23-year-olds. The rate at which firearms recovered in crimes are traced back to young purchasers jumps 10-fold at age 21 before peaking at age 22.[5] This sharp increase tracks with the legal minimum age to purchase handguns and would therefore begin rising earlier after DOJ’s baffling new refusal to enforce the 1968 law.

Young adults engage in crime at a higher rate than the rest of the adult population and lowering the age to purchase a handgun would make an even larger percentage of youths vulnerable to coercion or cooption by traffickers. According to the ATF, “The most frequent age of a purchaser of a crime gun was 22 years old, with purchasers between 21 and 25 years old accounting for almost as many traced crime guns as all purchasers ages 45 and older.” One reason most crime guns are purchased by people in this age group is because traffickers frequently use, and often force younger individuals who don't have criminal backgrounds to straw-purchase their weapons for them.

DOJ’s reckless U-turn interpretation of the 1968 law is made exceptionally more dangerous when combined with ATF’s proposed rule that would allow Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to engage in more “non-over-the-counter” gun sales than ever before. In other words, with this new opinion and if ATF’s rule is finalized as proposed, FFLs will be able to sell handguns to purchasers between the ages of 18 and 20 without them ever setting foot in a gun store and then deliver those guns directly to their door. This would eliminate critical opportunities for responsible FFLs to observe suspicious behavior that may indicate criminal intent and to exercise their discretion to decline such sales. This would be inconsistent with congressional intent and unnecessarily endanger public safety.

The sensible restriction on FFLs from selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds is constitutional and is helping save lives every day. Your duty is to enforce the law as Congress writes it, not to make up new laws you prefer and substitute them for the public will as expressed through Congress. We urge you to immediately rescind your unlawful and dangerous opinion.

Sincerely,

[1] Joshua D. Brown and Amie J. Goodin, “Mass Casualty Shooting Venues, Types of Firearms, and Age of Perpetrators in the United States, 1982–2018,” American Journal of Public Health 108, no. 10 (2018): 1385–138.7

[2] Paul M. Reeping et al., “State Firearm Laws, Gun Ownership, and K-12 School Shootings: Implications for School Safety,” Journal of School Violence 21, no. 2 (2022): 132–146.

[3] Eighteen to 20 year olds commit 18% of gun homicides, despite comprising just four percent of the US population. Giffords Law Center analysis of FBI Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data, 2016–2020.

[4] Emma E. Fridel et al., “Examining the Impact of Minimum Handgun Purchase Age and Background Check Legislation on Young Adult Suicide in the United States, 1991–2020.” American Journal of Public Health 0 (2024).

[5] https://www.atf.gov/media/15426/download

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Congressman Mike Thompson is proud to represent California’s 4th Congressional District, which includes all or part of Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo Counties. He is a senior member of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Rep. Thompson is Chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. He is also Co-Chair of the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Wine Caucus and a member of the fiscally-responsible Blue Dog Coalition.