Georgia Supreme Court upholds ban on those under 21 from carrying handguns in public

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a state law Wednesday that bans most people under 21 from carrying a handgun in public.

Under Georgia law, anyone ages 18 to 20 years old can possess handguns on their own property, in their car, at their business or for hunting, fishing and sport shooting. Those in the age group who have been trained by the military are exempt.

Thomas Stephens, a 20-year-old man from Lumpkin County, sued Georgia after a probate court denied him a weapons carry license in 2023, when he was 18. Stephens asked the state to stop enforcing that law, which he said violated his constitutional rights.

A trial court granted the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The Georgia Supreme Court denied his appeal, noting Georgia’s Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms but lets the General Assembly regulate how they are carried.

Georgia has some of the loosest gun laws in the country. The decision comes in the aftermath of heated debates about gun control in the state after a mass shooting at Apalachee High School, northeast of Atlanta, where a 14-year-old boy stands accused of killing two teachers and two students and wounding several others last Sept. 4.

Stephens asked the state Supreme Court to pick one of two federal legal tests used for Second Amendment challenges, “strict scrutiny” or “history and tradition,” to evaluate whether Georgia’s law is constitutional. The decision, written by Justice Andrew Pinson, says those standards are “not viable substitutes” for determining what the text of the state Constitution originally meant. Unlike Georgia, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t explicitly let legislatures regulate how people carry guns.

Pinson wrote in the decision that construing the meaning of a constitutional provision “requires careful attention to not only the language of the clause in question, but also its broader legal and historical context.”

Stephens’ attorney John Monroe argued the law infringed on his client’s rights. He also called it an arbitrary law because military training focuses on weapons other than handguns. But he knew unraveling the law would be an uphill battle.

“It’s not unexpected because there’s over a century of precedent that was against us,” Monroe said of Wednesday’s decision. He said they are “disappointed with the decision” but “it is what it is.”

Stephens’ lawsuit came less than a year after Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill in 2022 allowing Georgians to carry a handgun without a permit from the state. A bill that would let people sue local governments for enacting gun safety measures died on the final day of Georgia’s legislative session in April, and several gun safety proposals did not make it out of committee.

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.