We believe the fifth circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals made the correct decision last week when it struck down a federal law prohibiting 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from purchasing handguns.

“Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” the court wrote in its opinion statement, according to ABC News’ website. “The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban, and its 19th century evidence ‘cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence.'”

The law, long-standing though it may have been, deprived a category of adults — trusted and often encouraged to vote and trusted to enlist in our armed services — from one of their clearly enumerated rights. And, we doubt, failed to improve the safety of our communities and neighborhoods by assailing their rights.

As we have editorialized in the past, we firmly believe that violent crimes can better be prevented by addressing recidivism — by empowering law enforcement and probation and parole officers to investigate crimes and hold criminals accountable. We continue to believe, as well, that tougher sentencing for violent crimes and for repeat offenders would also curb violent crime in our nation more effectively than gun control proposals.

We hope in light of the court’s decision that our lawmakers can, rather than creating arbitrary obstacles for law-abiding American, focus on providing police, probation and parole departments with the resources and staffing so they can most effectively identify those who pose the greatest risk to public safety and to arrest, charge and convict them — with appropriately tough punishments — before their criminal behaviors escalate.