SCOTUS orders fresh look at Pennsylvania law lowering age to carry firearms

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated an appeals court decision allowing Pennsylvania residents younger than age 21 to openly carry firearms during a state of emergency. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided in January that a Pennsylvania law preventing legal gun owners ages 18-20 from publicly carrying guns was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated that decision but did not agree to hear oral arguments in the case. The justices ordered the court of appeals to review the case once again, this time in the light of their recent decision in United States v. Rahimi. In that decision, the justices found that the Second Amendment did not prevent police from taking away a man’s access to firearms while he was subject to a domestic violence restraining order.

Why did the justices instruct the appeals court to consider that case? The Supreme Court decided Rahimi in June—roughly five months after the court of appeals made its decision on the Pennsylvania law. As such, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals could not have factored it into the decision it made.

Dig deeper: Read Erin Hawley’s analysis of the Supreme Court’s new term in WORLD Opinions.