PHILADELPHIA (January 18, 2024) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down Pennsylvania’s laws that prevent 18-to-20-year-old adults from carrying a loaded firearm outside of the home for self-defense. The opinion in Lara v. Evanchick can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“It is undisputed that 18-to-20-year-olds are among ‘the people’ for other constitutional rights such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, government petitions, and the right against unreasonable government searches and seizures,” wrote Judge Kent A. Jordan, author of the majority opinion. “As we recently observed in Range, there is ‘no reason to adopt an inconsistent reading of “the people.”’ Indeed, wholesale exclusion of 18-to-20-year-olds from the scope of the Second Amendment would impermissibly render ‘the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense … ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’”

“We applaud the Third Circuit’s decision in this case confirming that 18-to-20-year-old adults have the same right to armed self-defense as any other adult,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s Vice President and General Counsel, and counsel for FPC. “If it wasn’t for 18-to-20-year-old adults being empowered to exercise their right to defend themselves, their loved ones, and their communities, our Nation wouldn’t exist–it would be a deep perversion of the Constitution to prevent them the same right today.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation.

Individuals who would like to join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs like these can sign up at JoinFPC.org. Individuals and organizations wanting to support charitable efforts in support of the restoration of Second Amendment and other natural rights can also make a tax-deductible donation to the FPC Action Foundation. For more on FPC’s lawsuits and other pro-Second Amendment initiatives, visit FPCLegal.org and follow FPC on Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube.

Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org), a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, exists to create a world of maximal human liberty, defend constitutional rights, advance individual liberty, and restore freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs.

FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.