The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied a petition to rehear a case that found Minnesota’s ban on gun carry permits for adults ages 18-20 unconstitutional.

The Minnesota law, passed in 2003, allowed only people over 21 to apply for a permit to carry a handgun, even though the federal limit is 18. In Worth v. Harrington, a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on July 16 unanimously upheld a district court’s decision that the law was unconstitutional. The petition was for the court’s full panel to rehear the appeal.

U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez, appointed by President Joe Biden, based her decision in March 2023 on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, a landmark 6-3 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 that determined the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right “to keep and bear arms” protects a broad right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense.

The challenge to the Minnesota law was filed in June 2021 by the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc., and three Minnesota residents. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison petitioned July 30 to have the full 8th Circuit panel hear the state’s appeal.

 “Clearly, Judge Menendez made the right call in the first place,” Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said Wednesday in a news release. “As we contended all along, the right of the people mentioned in the Second Amendment was not limited to those over a certain age. Certainly, young adults fall within the definition of ‘the people’ ever since they’ve been allowed to vote, and generations before that when they were considered part of the militia and have been accepted into the military.”

In its 3-0 decision, written by Judge Lavenski Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, and joined by judges Duane Benton, also a Bush appointee, and David Straus, a Donald Trump appointee, the 8th Circuit ruled “the Second Amendment’s plain text does not have an age limit,” compared with other age limits in the Constitution, such as serving in the House and Senate or as president.

“Minnesota has not met its burden to proffer sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that 18-to-20-year-olds seeking to carry handguns in public for self-defense are protected by the right to keep and bear arms,” the court ruled.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrat vice presidential nominee for November’s presidential election and a staunch gun control advocate, told Minnesota Public Radio on July 17 he was concerned about the public impact of the initial ruling.

“I am, as someone who joined the military at 17, somewhat sympathetic to this argument, that if you’re of age to join the military, you could carry a weapon,” Walz said. “The thing is, though, those of us in the military take extensive training on this. We don’t carry those weapons everywhere, and there’s a piece of responsibility.”

“I continue to come back to frontal lobe development, impulse control, some of those things. I think it’s a recipe for disaster, as we’ve seen this. More guns in the hands of more people who don’t know how to handle them is not the right way to go,” he said.

Newsmax reached out to Ellison for comment about the decision Wednesday and whether he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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