Another Second Amendment case remanded by the Supreme Court has come back with the same conclusion.

On Monday, a Third Circuit panel reaffirmed its decision to block a Pennsylvania ban on open carry by 18-to-20-year-olds during declared emergencies. By a 2-1 vote, the panel found the ban violated the Second Amendment. The majority said, upon review, it properly followed the Supreme Court’s precedents in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen and US v. Rahimi.

“We conclude that our prior analysis reflects the approach taken in Bruen and clarified in Rahimi,” Judge Kent A. Jordan wrote in Lara v. Comm’r Pa. State Police. “We did indeed consider ‘whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition[,]’ not whether a ‘historical twin’ of the regulation exists. Having determined that Rahimi sustains our prior analysis, we will again reverse and remand the District Court’s judgment.”

The ruling is just the latest in a string of decisions that have seen lower courts return the same decision they previously delivered before the High Court granted, vacated, and remanded them in the wake of Rahimi. It shows the limited impact that Rahimi has had on the biggest legal battles over the limits of the Second Amendment. The ruling could help convince the Court that further guidance on gun rights is needed to resolve those fights, which could lead to it taking up new cases.

Lara centers around a distinction made in the state’s gun-carry laws during emergency declarations. Under normal circumstances, Pennsylvania allows those over 18 who are not prohibited from owning firearms to open carry in public without a permit. On the other hand, concealed carry requires a permit only available to those 21 and older. Since Pennsylvania also bars the public carrying of firearms during a state or municipal emergency declaration by anyone other than those with permits, the state effectively bars 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying at all during those periods.

In October 2020, a trio of Pennsylvanians–backed by several gun-rights groups–filed suit over the ban. They claimed the state had been under an “uninterrupted state of emergency for nearly three years” due to COVID-19, the opioid crisis, and Hurricane Ida. In December 2020, a federal district judge denied their request for a preliminary injunction against the ban. Then, in January 2024, the Third Circuit panel sided with the plaintiffs.

Now, as then, the majority concluded the Second Amendment’s protections extend to 18-to-20-year-olds. It then determined there was no historical tradition of restricting gun carry among that group during an emergency.

“We understand that a reasonable debate can be had over allowing young adults to be armed, but the issue before us continues to be a narrow one,” Judge Jordan, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote. “Our question is whether the Commissioner has borne his burden of proving that Pennsylvania’s restriction on 18-to-20-year-olds’ Second Amendment rights is consistent with the principles that underpin founding-era firearm regulations, and the answer to that is no.”

While fellow Bush appointee Judge D. Brooks Smith once again joined Judge Jordan, the ruling also featured a nearly identical dissent to the first time around. Judge L. Felipe Restrepo, a Barack Obama appointee, argued that “because the text does not protect the Appellants here, it doesn’t protect their conduct.” He wrote that 18-to-20-year-olds were not understood to have gun rights during the Founding Era.

“[T]here is no dispute that there is some age threshold before which the protection of the Second Amendment does not apply,” Judge Restrepo wrote. “The more acute question in this case, then, is where does that age threshold lie? A ‘textual analysis focused on the normal and ordinary meaning of the Second Amendment’s language’ and an ‘examination of a variety of legal and other sources’ leads to the conclusion that the scope of the right, as understood during the Founding era, excludes those under the age of 21.”

The majority also rejected the state’s claim that the case is moot since there is no current emergency order in place.

“[P]ennsylvania continues to declare emergencies, and it is reasonably likely that other 18-to-20-year-olds, including members of the organizational Appellants here, namely the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition, will be banned from carrying guns in public yet again,” Judge Jordan wrote. “The Appellants persuasively argue that, while lengthy emergencies may now be less likely because of the recent constitutional amendment, the risk of regulated persons being unable to fully litigate this Second Amendment issue has increased since the adoption of the new constitutional amendment. Because emergencies may last for only twenty-one days, absent intervention from the General Assembly, it is highly unlikely that there will be enough time to fully litigate a claim.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) celebrated the ruling as a win for the gun rights of adults under 21.

“SAF has maintained all along that 18-20-year-olds are unquestionably part of ‘the people’ contemplated by the Second Amendment who have the same rights to keep and bear that any other adult has,” Bill Sack, the group’s director of legal operations, said in a statement. “The Third Circuit already agreed with us once, and today it reaffirmed its decision, finding that the Rahimi decision from the Supreme Court changes precisely nothing.”

The case will now head back to the district court for a final ruling unless Pennsylvania decides to try another appeal to the Supreme Court.