The Denver-based federal appeals court concluded on Monday that Congress acted within its constitutional powers to make it a crime for juveniles to possess handguns in most instances.

The decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit was highly unusual, as it involved a juvenile defendant’s prosecution in federal court. The Juvenile Delinquency Act recognizes that state courts will handle cases involving juvenile defendants, except in circumstances where the U.S. attorney certifies to a federal judge that specific circumstances are present that would allow for the prosecution to unfold in federal court.

Under the law, unlawful possession of a handgun is one of the crimes eligible for juvenile prosecution, so long as it involves a “substantial” interest by the federal government.

In the underlying case, defendant “John Doe” challenged his probationary sentence for one count of unlawful handgun possession. The Juvenile Delinquency Act triggered the sealing of all information related to the case, so it is unclear where Doe’s case transpired in the 10th Circuit, which encompasses Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

To a three-judge 10th Circuit panel, Doe did not argue that the prohibition on juvenile handgun possession, with certain exceptions, violated his Second Amendment rights. Instead, Doe maintained Congress exceeded its powers to regulate interstate commerce in enacting the provision.

Judge Nancy L. Moritz, writing in the panel’s Aug. 3 decision, agreed with two other federal appeals courts that rejected similar arguments.

“Congress’s power to regulate ‘activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce’ is relatively broad,” she wrote.

The panel determined the prohibition on juvenile handgun possession was directly and substantially related to regulating the interstate handgun market.

“Congress’s goal,” Moritz wrote, “is to exclude juveniles from interstate handgun markets. This goal is within Congress’s Commerce Clause power, which extends to excluding buyers from interstate or foreign markets.”

She added that if Congress lacked the ability to largely exclude juveniles from the handgun market, “it’s further rational to believe there would be an increase in juvenile handgun buyers compared to the status quo because it would be harder to police juvenile buyers who could unconditionally possess handguns.”

Although the law creates exceptions for temporary and work-related possession of guns, Moritz wrote that those provisions did not undercut Congress’ decision to exclude juveniles from the handgun market in the “vast majority of conceivable situations.”

“Individuals and businesses can’t sell handguns to juveniles, regardless of the juvenile’s purpose in obtaining a handgun; juveniles can’t own handguns, regardless of the purpose of their ownership; and, by necessary implication, juveniles can’t sell handguns that they can’t temporarily possess,” she wrote. Neither “the Supreme Court nor we have ever held that a total ban on the possession of an item is a prerequisite to finding the existence of a general regulatory scheme.”

The 10th Circuit’s clerk told Colorado Politics that, to his knowledge, the court likely decides fewer than five federal juvenile appeals each year. A spokesperson for Colorado’s U.S. Attorney’s Office said it handles fewer than one juvenile case per year, on average.

Multiple federal practitioners who spoke to Colorado Politics agreed that such cases are rare and generally arise from tribal reservations.

The case is United States v. Doe.