The NRA is suing Florida over its new gun control law

Spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (NRA) Dana Loesch speaks during the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference — (Image credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images)

The National Rifle Association (NRA) filed suit against the state of Florida immediately following Friday's passage of a major new gun control law.

The lawsuit particularly targets the decision to raise the age to purchase a gun in Florida from 18 to 21. Because "for almost all purposes and certainly for the purposes of the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights" an 18-year-old is considered an adult, the NRA argues, denying Americans ages 18-20 the right to buy a gun violates both the Second Amendment and the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

The suit says Florida's new law is especially unfair to young women who may wish to purchase guns, because "[f]emales between the ages of 18 and 21 pose a relatively slight risk of perpetrating a school shooting ... or, for that matter, a violent crime of any kind." In addition to such constitutional concerns, the NRA said, "preventing a responsible 20-year-old from purchasing the best tool for self-defense will not stop a deranged criminal intent on committing a crime."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.