On April 21, 2025, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Jacobson v. Worth, leaving intact a unanimous Eighth Circuit ruling that Minnesota’s carry prohibition for adults aged 18 to 20 violates the Second Amendment. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison had petitioned the Court on January 17, 2025, asking the Justices to reverse the panel decision and save the state’s age restriction. The Court declined — ending the litigation with a clean win for the Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, and the four individual plaintiffs who brought the original challenge: Kristin Worth, Austin Dye, Alex Anderson, and Joe Knudsen.
The Eighth Circuit’s Unanimous Decision
The underlying case, Worth v. Jacobson, No. 23-2248 (8th Cir. 2024), began in June 2021. SAF and FPC challenged Minnesota’s blanket prohibition on issuing carry permits to otherwise-qualified adults under 21. A three-judge panel ruled 3-0 that the restriction cannot survive New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022).
The panel’s analysis is straightforward: 18-to-20-year-olds were unquestionably among the “people” protected by the Second Amendment as ratified. No historical tradition of disarming that age cohort can be located to justify Minnesota’s law. Under Bruen’s text-history-and-tradition framework, the government bears the burden of producing a historical analogue for its restriction. Minnesota could not meet that burden, because no such tradition exists. The panel specifically held that “Minnesota has not met its burden to proffer sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that 18 to 20-year-olds seeking to carry handguns in public for self-defense are protected by the right to keep and bear arms.”
The historical record is especially damaging to the state’s position. The Militia Act of 1792, enacted on May 8, 1792 — barely five months after the Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791 — affirmatively required every able-bodied male citizen between 18 and 45 to provide himself with a musket or rifle, ammunition, and accoutrements. The First Congress did not merely tolerate young adults keeping and bearing arms; it obligated them to exercise that right. Any regulation that inverts that founding-era baseline carries an exceptionally heavy burden to justify — a burden Minnesota could not satisfy.
Why the Cert Denial Is a Victory
A cert denial carries no binding national precedent. The Supreme Court has not issued a definitive merits holding that young adult carry rights are constitutionally protected across the country. But within the Eighth Circuit’s seven-state jurisdiction — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota — the ruling is final law. Minnesota’s carry prohibition cannot be enforced. Young adults aged 18, 19, and 20 in those states are entitled to apply for carry permits on the same terms as any other adult.
That is a concrete change in the lives of tens of thousands of Minnesotans. AG Ellison framed his cert petition as a matter of public safety, arguing that without Supreme Court intervention the state would lose an important protective tool. My read of that argument is simple: it is precisely the interest-balancing Bruen closed the door on in 2022. Legislatures cannot override the Constitution’s plain text by asserting policy preferences. The historical record controls, and the historical record does not support age-based disarmament of adults. The Supreme Court left that conclusion standing.
The Circuit Map and What Comes Next
Jacobson v. Worth is one of several converging circuit victories on young adult rights. The Third, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits have each sided with young adult plaintiffs challenging age-based carry and purchase restrictions. The Eleventh Circuit — upholding Florida’s post-Parkway purchase ban for 18-to-20-year-olds, which the NRA challenged — reached the opposite conclusion. That circuit conflict is now genuine and widening.
When the Supreme Court takes the young-adult question, it will have a mature record in front of it: well-reasoned panel opinions from multiple circuits, detailed historical surveys, and a real disagreement among circuits that the Court has every institutional reason to resolve. Worth v. Jacobson contributes a clean, historically grounded opinion that applies Bruen faithfully — no balancing, no judicial reweighting of policy preferences, just the text and tradition analysis the Court mandated.
The cert denial in Jacobson v. Worth is not a pause button. It is the Eighth Circuit win going to full effect. Seven states, millions of young adults, constitutionally protected carry rights now confirmed by circuit precedent. That is the Second Amendment gaining ground one circuit at a time — exactly the kind of durable progress that builds toward a definitive Supreme Court ruling from a position of strength.
The deeper point is one I have made repeatedly: personnel and doctrine both matter. The Eighth Circuit applied Bruen correctly. The Supreme Court letting that stand is a signal that circuit courts willing to do the hard historical work and reach the right answer will see their decisions endure. Minnesota’s political leadership chose to spend taxpayer money petitioning for a restriction the Constitution does not permit. The Court declined to bail them out. That is the right outcome for the Second Amendment and for every young adult in the Eighth Circuit who now exercises the same rights the Founders recognized belonged to them from the beginning.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.