OLC said DOJ may not criminally punish dealers for handgun sales to law-abiding 18-20 adults, but the ban text is still law until Congress finishes the job. Chip in so Pennsylvania Firearms Association stays loud through November.
Here’s the part the victory-lap emails are going to skip.
Last week DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said the Department may not criminally enforce the federal handgun age ban against licensed dealers who sell handguns to otherwise law-abiding adults ages 18 to 20. OLC dated it September 17. DOJ announced it September 18. And then a whole lot of people acted like the ban itself packed up and left town.
It didn’t.
Congress did not repeal those provisions. The Supreme Court did not strike them for the whole country. What happened is DOJ’s own lawyers looked at the criminal hammer and said they can’t swing it that way against dealers for that class of adults. Gaiser’s shorthand was the same point you’d make over coffee: vote, jury duty, the draft, adult penalties – and somehow a handgun from a dealer was the one place they wanted to treat you like a child. DOJ just admitted the criminal-enforcement half of that scheme doesn’t hold up.
But the zombie statute is still sitting in the U.S. Code. A future Attorney General can try to revive the threat. Courts are not bound by an OLC memo. One federal circuit already struck this as applied, another upheld it, and the Supreme Court left that split standing when it denied cert in the Fourth Circuit case on June 30, 2026. And states can still keep their own shop-door rules even when federal criminal enforcement pauses, so nobody should pretend every counter in Pennsylvania magically opened because Washington put out a press release.
So this is a window, not a funeral for the ban. Windows close. November is when politicians will try to scare everybody back into line and hope gun owners get bored.
We’re holding the line through November so senators don’t get to leave a zombie ban on the books and call the week a win. If you can spare a little after you’ve chewed on that, chip in so Pennsylvania Firearms Association stays loud while the statute is still breathing.
For Pennsylvania,
Chris Dorr
Executive Director
Pennsylvania Firearms Association
P.S. A DOJ opinion is not a repeal. Don’t let anyone sell you the victory lap until Congress actually buries the text.