NRA sues Philadelphia to allow 18- to 20-year-olds to carry guns
The lawsuit says Pennsylvania's age criteria for a license to carry a firearm, which is required for public carrying in Philadelphia, renders 18-to-20-year-olds "defenseless."
An 18-year-old from Philadelphia joined forces with national gun rights groups to challenge Pennsylvania’s ban on people ages 18 to 20 obtaining gun permits, which are required to carry a firearm in the City of Brotherly Love.
The state’s requirement that applicants for a license to carry a gun be at least 21 violates the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, Daniel Maines, the National Rifle Association of America, and the Firearms Policy Coalition say in a federal lawsuit.
The prohibition means that in Philadelphia, the only city in Pennsylvania that requires a permit to carry a gun at all, Maines cannot carry a firearm in public in his hometown.
Maines can vote, get married, and join the military, the suit says, but the requirements “prevent him from fully exercising his Second Amendment-protected rights on par with all other adult Pennsylvanians.”
The lawsuit, filed last month in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, names Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner George Bivens as defendants. Earlier this month, attorneys for Maines and the gun rights groups asked a judge to fast-track a ruling by issuing an injunction or deciding the case without trial.
The lawsuit notes the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held in 2025 that 18- to 20-year-olds “are, like other subsets of the American public, presumptively among ‘the people’ to whom Second Amendment rights extend.”
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Pennsylvania’s appeal in that case over the summer, making the Third Circuit’s ruling binding precedent.
Pennsylvania’s 1995 Uniform Firearms Act age restriction is an “immoral, government-created trap that threatens Americans with prison for exercising their rights,” said Firearms Policy Coalition president Brandon Combs.
“We’re asking the court to shut this ban down now — or enter judgment against Pennsylvania outright,” Combs said in a statement.
The NRA did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Philadelphia nor Pennsylvania State Police.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the Constitution protects an “individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,” the suit says, and the Pennsylvania laws infringe on that right.
The combination of the 21-or-older requirement and the ban on carrying a gun in Philadelphia without a license means that 18- to 20-year-olds are “defenseless in the Commonwealth’s most violent city,” the lawsuit says. The lawsuit cites FBI crime data that show that nearly 44% of violent crimes reported in Pennsylvania in 2025 took place in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia last year saw the fewest homicides in half a century, and the declines in violent crime continued into this year.
