(Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas threw out the state's ban on people between 18 and 20 years old from carrying handguns on Thursday in what appears to be the first major judicial decision since a landmark ruling on weapons rights by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.

The challenge to the Texas statute that bans young adults not in active military service from having handguns in public was filed in 2021 by the Firearms Policy Coalition, a gun-owners' rights group. The group said the ban violated the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which says state's can organize militias and that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual right to carry weapons in public for self-defense. The decision also ordered the federal judiciary to apply a "history-only" test when considering challenges to weapons regulations, saying a regulation was constitutional only if it was similar to those around in the 18th century when the Second Amendment was ratified.

Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth ruled that there was no historical tradition of stopping young adults from carrying guns in public in an opinion that repeatedly cited the new Supreme Court ruling.