Original article can be found here.
The National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, and plaintiff Daniel Maines have opened a direct challenge to Pennsylvania’s age-based carry ban. On October 30, 2026, the NRA announced the filing of Maines v. Bethel in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The lawsuit challenges 18 Pa.C.S. § 6109(b), the provision that bars 18- to 20-year-olds from obtaining a license to carry.
Pennsylvania already treats 18-year-olds as adults for the civic acts that mark full membership in the political community. They may vote. They may enlist. What they may not do, under § 6109(b), is obtain a license to carry. The suit argues that legal adults who can vote and enlist cannot be locked out of Pennsylvania’s LTC process.
Firearms Policy Coalition is suing Pennsylvania again. FPC’s position is that Second Amendment rights do not start at 21. The NRA is in the case. Daniel Maines is the named plaintiff. The groups ask the Eastern District to test § 6109(b) against the Constitution rather than treat a state age cutoff as the last word on who may seek a carry license.
A license-to-carry system that excludes every 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old is not a narrow administrative filter. It is a categorical bar on an entire class of legal adults. Age alone keeps them out of Pennsylvania’s LTC process. That is the policy Maines, the NRA, and FPC put before the Eastern District.
That design collides with the constitutional order. The Second Amendment is not a privilege the General Assembly may withhold until a citizen turns 21. State statutes yield to the Constitution. Public officers swear oaths to the Constitution. When Pennsylvania law tells a voting, enlistment-eligible adult that carry licenses are off limits, the conflict belongs in federal court.
Maines v. Bethel is on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania docket. The defendants will have to defend why adults trusted with the franchise and with military enlistment are barred from the LTC process. The plaintiffs will press adult status and the Second Amendment. The age cutoff in § 6109(b) is now a federal question.
Litigation on the merits is what comes next. The Constitution controls. Pennsylvania cannot keep legal adults off the carry-license rolls because they have not turned 21. The right to keep and bear arms does not wait on a state legislature’s preferred birthday. Oaths run to that right, and the Eastern District now has the statute in front of it.
References
- https://www.nraila.org/articles/20261030/nra-files-lawsuit-challenging-pennsylvania-s-carry-restrictions-for-adults-under-21
- https://www.firearmspolicy.org/fpc-sues-pennsylvania-again-second-amendment-rights-dont-start-at-21
- https://www.firearmspolicy.org/maines
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/75042710/maines-v-bethel/
- https://www.usacarry.com/can-vote-can-enlist-but-cant-apply-to-carry-fpc-and-nra-sue-over-pennsylvanias-ban-on-carry-licenses-for-18-to-20-year-olds/
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