Editor’s Note: Gun Pulse, formerly an email newsletter from The Sentinel meant to cover the battle over the Second Amendment in our nation, is now exclusively available on our website.

Gun Owners of America announced that they filed a lawsuit against the state government of Massachusetts for refusing young adults the ability to buy, possess, or carry certain firearms.

Massachusetts law forbids adults between eighteen and twenty years old from owning any handguns or semiautomatic firearms, a statute which Gun Owners of America contended was a violation of the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.

The organization said in the lawsuit that the phrase “the people” in the Second Amendment covers “all members of the political community,” of which young adults are clearly a component. There also exists no “tradition of firearm regulation” for adults between eighteen and twenty.

The complaint repeated that restricting firearm ownership based on age “has no basis in either the text of the Second Amendment” or in history of firearm laws passed in the United States.

Gun Owners of America also asserted that “handguns and semiautomatic firearms are, in fact, the most popular types of firearms in the country today,” a fact affirmed by the Supreme Court, while there is also “no founding-era historical tradition of banning commonly owned firearms.”

The new lawsuit, which the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation are also backing, is representing a plaintiff named Mack Escher, a resident of Massachusetts who is forbidden from owning handguns and semiautomatic weapons because of his age.

Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey signed a gun control bill last year that implemented a number of restrictions on the right to bear arms. The law included the ban on young adult firearm ownership, enhanced red flag gun confiscation laws, and similar provisions.

“Massachusetts is proud of our strong gun laws, but there is always more work to be done to keep our communities safe from violence,” Healey said. “This law will save lives, and I’m grateful to the legislature and gun safety advocates for their hard work to see this through.”