The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has closed the license-to-carry window on adults under 21. In a 5-2 decision issued October 20, 2026, in Commonwealth v. Thomson (SJC-13856), the court held that the state's bar on license-to-carry permits for adults under 21 is consistent with founding-era militia traditions and affirmed a 20-year-old's conviction for unlicensed carry.
Five justices formed the majority. Two did not. The holding is blunt: Massachusetts may refuse a carry license because the applicant is 18, 19, or 20, and a 20-year-old who carries without that license may be convicted. The court anchored that result in founding-era militia traditions. The conviction stands with it.
Thomson was 20. Massachusetts would not issue him a license to carry. He was prosecuted for unlicensed carry. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed. That is the statute operating as written. The Commonwealth withholds the permit from a class of adults, then punishes a member of that class for lacking it. The state's highest court has now said that arrangement fits militia-era practice.
A license-to-carry mandate paired with an under-21 cutoff is a public-carry ban for every adult in that age band. The majority's militia-tradition rationale treats those adults as outside the historical arms-bearing community it was willing to recognize. The Second Amendment's operative clause protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It does not recast that right as a privilege a licensing statute may withhold until a 21st birthday.
Positive law in Massachusetts now stands, with the Supreme Judicial Court's blessing, between a defined class of adults and the permit the state itself makes the condition of lawful handgun carry. Every justice on that court took an oath to the Constitution of the United States. So did every lawmaker who left the age bar in place. The Constitution is not subordinate to a licensing statute, and militia history is not a warrant to write 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old adults out of the people.
Thomson's conviction is affirmed. The under-21 license-to-carry ban remains the rule in Massachusetts. Unless a higher court disturbs the judgment or the legislature repeals the age restriction, adults under 21 in the Commonwealth will continue to be denied the license the state requires and exposed to prosecution if they carry without it. Rights do not wait on a birthday the Constitution never wrote.
References
- https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/11039862/commonwealth-v-thomson/
- https://www.mass.gov/doc/commonwealth-v-thomson-sjc-o13856/download
- https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/split-massachusetts-high-court-upholds-handgun-permit-age-limit
- https://masslegalresources.com/2026/10/20/sjc-upholds-firearms-age-restriction-drawing-on-historical-militia-traditions-commonwealth-v-thomson-sjc-13856-october-20-2026/
- https://www.mass.gov/info-details/new-opinions