Just out today, the decision in the case of
NRA (was Rebecca Jennings) v. BATF #11-10959, the CA5 panel has affirmed the dismissal of the lower district court.
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...59-CV0.wpd.pdf
In addressing the issue of standing, the court reasoned that the plaintiffs did have standing to challenge the law. That's the good news.
The bad news is that while the CA5 adopted the 2-prong approach used by
Skoien (CA7),
Chester and
Maciandaro (CA4), and
Marzzarella (CA3), the panel reasoned that the founding term of including
infants as prohibited persons was sound.
Infants as the court concluded were those children and minors below the age of historical (and common law) majority: i.e. 20 yrs. and below.
Quote:
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If a representative citizen of the founding era conceived of a “minor” as an individual who was unworthy of the Second Amendment guarantee, and conceived of 18-to-20-year-olds as “minors,” then it stands to reason that the citizen would have supported restricting an 18-to-20-year-old’s right to keep and bear arms.
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While earlier, the court gave some notice of the early militia acts, they have not completely ignored the fact that those very same acts demanded that all males aged 18-to-45 be armed. This is addressed in FN #17 (pp 28).
In short, the NRA shot its own foot and gave the court its "out" in the matter of age/majority. The 2A claim was rejected on Intermediate Scrutiny.
Likewise, the Equal Protection clause was rejected on Rational Basis.
Expect the same treatment in the somewhat related case of
NRA (was Jennings) v. McCraw (age of Texas CCW holders).
These cases jumped the gun and have provided a rather negative precedence, all because the NRA did not want to wait for the issue of "carry" to be fully formed.