Clearly there isn’t enough gun violence in America, because you’ll never guess who can now legally buy handguns

Donald Trump continues to wreak havoc across United States institutions as we close out the second week — it’s been less than 14 days — of his second term.

In just a couple of short weeks, Trump has massively rolled back — or outright canceled — a slew of programs, slashing federal loans and grants, eliminating federally recognized observances, and withdrawing the U.S. from global partnerships and agreements. Its been hard to keep track of all the changes, occurring as they are within such a short period of time, but the impacts of his actions will be far-reaching.

As will the consequences of his decisions, which result in rulings like the one passed down by the conservative Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals this week. The federal appeals court struck down a longstanding federal ban that, for more than 50 years, prevented people under 20 years old from purchasing handguns.

Now 18 to 20-year-olds can legally purchase pistols across the states, allowing yet more firearms to inundate our communities. The court cited precedent that reaches all the way back to the Constitution’s writing, citing 2022’s State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and adding that the “text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected.”

The court also wrote that “the federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban.”

Okay sure, 18 to 20-year-olds were allowed to purchase and own handguns in the late 1700s. That checks out, since most 18 to 20-year-olds during the Revolutionary War period were already parents, property owners, and many were soldiers. But in 2025, most 18 to 20-year-olds are stressed to the high heavens, eyeing college, careers, and constant strife with their peers. In 1787, when the Constitution was first penned, school shootings weren’t a thing. Sky-high suicides didn’t come with the pull of a trigger. Things have changed in the centuries that have passed since, and we must change, too.

But the Conservative blowhards who are finding increasing power across this nation disagree with that notion. The “great” time referenced in Trump’s MAGA apparently references the year this nation was founded, and these dinosaurs want to drag us back to that time.

A time in which, sure, young people could buy guns without the government taking issue, but also a time in which women weren’t considered citizens, Black people only counted as three-fifths of a person, and men had unhampered control over the women and children in their lives. A time in which rights for those outside of white men barely existed — which really does seem to be the era Donald Trump idealizes the most.

That’s the time Trump wants to take us back to. His voyage to “make America great again” sees a period of distinct segregation and power imbalance as the ideal time, and his administration is working hard to haul us back to it. This firearm ruling is just one tiny step in the process, but in this country, it ensures one thing absolutely: Lives will be lost over this.

Time has proven that guns + Americans = pointless violence, and this simply allows more guns to flow freely among the same young people who are most likely to use them. Whether their using them to take their own lives or the lives of their peers, they will use them, and when they do, the people who put those guns in their hands will call for “thoughts and prayers” and an end to politics, even though that’s where all of this started.