By Joshua Wood
Massachusetts may continue to require a person to be at least twenty-one years old to obtain a license to carry a firearm. In Commonwealth v. Thomson, SJC-13856, decided October 20, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected a Second Amendment challenge to that requirement and affirmed the defendant’s conviction for carrying a firearm without a license.
The decision was divided. Five justices upheld the restriction. Two would have required further historical research and proceedings before deciding whether the restriction satisfies the Constitution.
For a young adult facing a Massachusetts firearm charge, the decision is significant. It establishes the court’s position on the licensing age requirement while leaving the prosecution responsible for proving the charged offense. Understanding the scope of the ruling is essential to evaluating a defense.
1. The Traffic Stop and the Firearm Charge
Mikai Thomson was twenty years old when a police officer stopped a car in December 2021 after it went through a red light. Thomson was in the front passenger seat. The officer observed marijuana inside the car, and none of its three occupants was wearing a seat belt.
The officer requested identification and asked whether anyone had a weapon. Thomson did not answer the question about weapons. When the officer asked him to leave the car, Thomson complied, pushed the officer, and ran. During his flight, he discarded a loaded nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.
A jury convicted him of carrying a firearm without a license under G. L. c. 269, § 10(a), and assault and battery on a police officer.
Thomson did not dispute that he lacked a license to carry or that he had never applied for one. His argument was that Massachusetts unconstitutionally prevented him from obtaining a license because he was under twenty-one.
He did not challenge the assault and battery conviction on appeal. The court affirmed that conviction without further discussion and addressed his constitutional challenge to the firearm licensing age restriction.
2. The Court Upheld the Age Requirement Without Deciding Whether Young Adults Fall Outside the Second Amendment
One distinction is particularly important: the court did not hold that people under twenty-one have no Second Amendment rights.
The majority assumed, without deciding, that Thomson was among the people protected by the Second Amendment. It also recognized that carrying a semiautomatic handgun falls within the conduct described by the amendment’s text.
The court then considered whether the Commonwealth could justify the age restriction through the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
That approach follows New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), and subsequent Supreme Court decisions. When the Second Amendment’s text covers the conduct at issue, the government must establish the required historical justification for regulating it.
A claim that a restriction promotes public safety is insufficient by itself. The constitutional analysis requires a comparison between the modern restriction and relevant historical regulations.
3. Why the Majority Found the Restriction Constitutional
The majority examined how Massachusetts regulates young people’s access to firearms through age requirements, supervision, and the settings in which firearms may be used.
The court described a graduated system. Certain supervised activities are permitted before a person is eligible for a license to carry. Other permissions become available as the person grows older. The license to carry becomes available at twenty-one, subject to the remaining licensing requirements.
The majority compared that system with historical laws governing young people, particularly those serving in the militia.
Under the historical laws the court examined, young men could be required to serve in the militia, but parents, guardians, or other responsible adults generally bore the obligation to supply their arms. Towns supplied arms when the responsible adults could not afford them. Militia service also involved command and supervision.
The court further considered historical restrictions on minors’ ability to enter binding contracts and control their earnings. In the majority’s view, those restrictions limited young people’s independent access to firearms.
Taken together, the majority understood this history to support temporary restrictions intended to protect young people and others from the consequences of immaturity. It concluded that Massachusetts’s licensing age requirement was sufficiently analogous to that tradition.
The historical regulations did not have to be identical to the modern statute. The majority found sufficient similarity in whom the restrictions affected, how long they lasted, and the purposes they served.
That historical comparison was the central basis for upholding the age requirement.
4. Why Thomson Could Bring One Constitutional Challenge but Not the Other
Thomson sought to challenge the age restriction both on its face and as applied to him.
A facial challenge attacks the validity of the restriction itself. An as-applied challenge concerns how the law operates in the particular person’s circumstances.
The court allowed Thomson to pursue the facial challenge even though he had never applied for a license. His failure to apply did not prevent the court from deciding whether the age restriction was unconstitutional on its face.
His as-applied challenge encountered a separate problem.
Massachusetts generally requires a person challenging the firearm licensing scheme as applied to that person to have applied for and been denied a license. Thomson had done neither. He also had not established that age was the only obstacle to his eligibility.
The court left open the possibility that an adequate record could establish standing without an application where applying would have been futile. Thomson’s record did not support that conclusion.
This limited opening concerns whether a court will hear an as-applied challenge. It does not create an exemption from the age requirement or establish that the constitutional challenge would succeed.
5. The Dissent Questioned the Historical Analysis and the Process Used to Reach It
Justice Kafker, joined by Justice Wendlandt, would have sent the case back for further proceedings, including expert historical analysis and additional briefing.
The dissent emphasized that the Commonwealth bears the burden of supplying the historical justification required by Bruen. It criticized the limited historical presentation by the parties and the majority’s reliance on research the court conducted itself.
The disagreement was substantive as well as procedural.
Historical laws requiring young men to possess arms for militia service could support different conclusions about their rights. Likewise, restrictions on contracts and earnings could reflect the economic organization of households rather than a judgment that young adults were too immature to possess firearms.
The dissent also questioned whether restrictions affecting the purchase of firearms sufficiently support a prohibition on possession. Those are related issues, but the legal burdens are different.
Justice Kafker’s concern was that the defense had no opportunity to examine and answer much of the historical reasoning before the court issued its decision. He would have required a fuller record before resolving the constitutional question.
The majority concluded that it could decide the legal issue through the authorities presented and its own legal research.
The dissent did not establish that the age restriction was unconstitutional. It proposed further proceedings before deciding that question. The majority’s ruling controls.
6. What Thomson Means for Defending a Massachusetts Firearm Charge
Thomson makes a facial Second Amendment challenge to the age-21 licensing requirement unsuccessful under the SJC’s decision. A defense must account for that ruling.
The prosecution still must prove the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The opinion recognizes that the absence of a license is part of that burden. In Thomson’s trial, the jury were instructed that they could consider his age and resulting licensing ineligibility when deciding whether the Commonwealth had proved that he lacked a license.
Other issues require an examination of the particular case. Those may include the evidence connecting the defendant to the firearm, whether the object satisfies the applicable statutory definition, whether an exemption applies, and whether police obtained the evidence through lawful conduct.
The licensing decision also does not establish that every traffic stop, exit order, search, or seizure involving a young person is lawful. Any suppression issue must be evaluated under the facts and governing law.
Preservation is another important lesson. Thomson first raised his constitutional arguments on appeal. The court therefore reviewed them under the substantial-risk-of-a-miscarriage-of-justice standard applicable to unpreserved claims in noncapital cases. Raising a supported constitutional issue in the trial court allows counsel to develop the relevant record and preserve the argument for review.
Finally, the opinion principally describes the licensing statutes in effect when the conduct occurred in December 2021. Massachusetts later amended and reorganized those statutes. The current license-to-carry provision, G. L. c. 140, § 131(d), retains the age-21 requirement, but the opinion’s discussion of former provisions should not be treated as a complete guide to current licensing law.
Q and A
1. Can a twenty-year-old obtain a Massachusetts license to carry?
Massachusetts’s license-to-carry statute requires the applicant to be at least twenty-one. In Commonwealth v. Thomson, the SJC rejected a facial Second Amendment challenge to that age restriction.
2. Did the court rule that people under twenty-one have no Second Amendment rights?
No. The court assumed, without deciding, that Thomson was among the people protected by the Second Amendment. It upheld the restriction based on its assessment of the historical tradition of firearm regulation.
3. Is a firearm identification card the same as a license to carry?
No. An FID card provides narrower permissions. Under the current statute, it generally authorizes rifles and shotguns that are neither large capacity nor semiautomatic, along with their ammunition. It does not authorize ordinary public carry of a handgun. The statute separately addresses certain supervised use at shooting clubs and ranges.
4. Must someone apply for a license before challenging the age restriction?
The answer depends on the challenge. Thomson could bring a facial challenge without applying. His as-applied challenge failed on standing because he had not applied and had not established a sufficient basis to excuse that requirement. The court left open a possible futility argument on an adequate record.
5. Did the dissenting justices decide that the restriction violated the Constitution?
No. They would have required further historical evidence and briefing before deciding the constitutional question. They did not order Thomson’s firearm charge dismissed.
6. Does Thomson eliminate other defenses to an unlawful firearm possession charge?
No. The decision resolves the challenge to the licensing age restriction presented in that appeal. Questions concerning possession, the prosecution’s evidence, statutory exemptions, and the lawfulness of police conduct still require analysis in the individual case.
Conclusion
Commonwealth v. Thomson upholds Massachusetts’s age-21 requirement for a license to carry and explains the historical reasoning supporting that result. It also demonstrates the importance of identifying the precise constitutional claim, developing the necessary record, and preserving the issue before trial.
For someone facing prosecution, the immediate task is to examine the charge and the evidence closely. The Commonwealth must prove its case with admissible evidence, and the defense must be prepared to challenge unsupported allegations and unlawful police conduct.
A firearm charge can put your liberty and your future at risk. If you or a family member is facing a firearm charge in Massachusetts, call Benzaken, Sheehan & Wood, LLP. We can review how the case began, examine the evidence, and assess the available defenses. Call us today to discuss your case and begin preparing a defense that addresses the facts, protects your rights, and holds the Commonwealth to its burden of proof.