George A. Mocsary (University of Wyoming College of Law) has posted The Wrong Level of Generality: Misapplying Bruen to Young-Adult Firearm Rights (103 Wash. U. L. Rev. Online 100 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Three relatively recent appellate opinions—McCoy v. ATF, National Rifle Ass’n v. Bondi, and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners v. Polis—upheld modern restrictions on 18-to-20-year-old adults’ ability to purchase firearms. Each does so by choosing the wrong level of generality in its historical analysis. Rather than ask whether there is a tradition of restricting young adults’ arms rights, McCoy and Bondi reach for broad, non-firearm-specific infancy rules from contract law; Polis reframes the question as a generic regulation of commercial sales. These choices depart from New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen’s analogical method, which instructs courts to use closely matching analogues where available and to abstract up only when necessary. When the historical record includes firearm-specific sources about 18-to-20-year-olds’ rights and duties, courts must use those sources rather than attenuated contract law rules designed to protect minors from unscrupulous adults or a rebuttable safe harbor for sales regulations.