ST. CROIX — An 18-year-old man charged with illegally carrying a firearm and possessing ammunition is asking the Superior Court to dismiss his case, arguing that the territory’s requirement that gun license applicants be at least 21 years old is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, according to court documents.
John Abramson IV was arrested on charges of carrying a firearm openly or concealed and unlawful possession of ammunition in connection with a February 3 shooting near Queen and Market streets in Frederiksted. According to police, Abramson and Shalom Fenton Sr. allegedly fired gunshots following an argument between Fenton and another person around 9:26 p.m. A gunshot victim subsequently arrived at the Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center, and several vehicles were damaged by gunfire.
Attorney Mally Rutherford, of McChain Hamm & Associates, submitted the motion to dismiss on April 20, arguing that the Virgin Islands regulation requiring applicants for a firearms license to be 21 years old violates the constitutional rights of 18-to-20-year-olds and that, because Abramson’s charges are predicated on his inability to obtain a license under that regulation, the indictment must be dismissed.
The motion argues that Abramson’s circumstances distinguish his case from prior Virgin Islands cases in which defendants were found to lack standing to challenge the territory’s firearms laws. According to a sworn affidavit from the arresting officer, police do not assert that Abramson initiated the shooting — the affidavit indicates he acted in self-defense after another individual had been struck three times with what appeared to be a firearm, shot at, and chased.
The motion further details Abramson’s personal history to contextualize his decision to carry a firearm. At 14, he was robbed at gunpoint while working. More recently, his cousin Dion Ahmil Williams — who closely resembled him — was shot and killed in 2024, his body burned in a vehicle in Estate Whim near the former Good Hope School. That case remains unsolved. The motion argues these experiences gave Abramson reasonable grounds to seek self-protection, placing his conduct squarely within the Second Amendment’s protections.
The motion relies heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established that firearms regulations must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulation to survive constitutional scrutiny. Under that framework, the defense argues, the Virgin Islands age restriction fails on both fronts.
First, the motion points to a January 2025 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police, which held that individuals between 18 and 21 are presumptively among “the people” protected by the Second Amendment’s plain text.
Second, the motion argues there is no historical precedent for categorically barring 18-to-20-year-olds from exercising Second Amendment rights. It cites the Second Militia Act of 1792, passed just five months after the Second Amendment was ratified, which required all able-bodied men to enroll in the militia and arm themselves upon turning 18. The defense argues this is strong evidence that founding-era lawmakers believed young adults could and should bear arms.
Because the Virgin Islands were Danish colonies until purchased by the United States in 1917, the motion acknowledges there are no local founding-era laws to examine, and urges the court to look instead to American colonial and early state regulations — all of which, the defense argues, treated 18-to-20-year-olds as part of the militia entitled to bear arms.
The motion also cites rulings from the Fifth Circuit in Reese v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives and the Eighth Circuit in Worth v. Jacobson, both of which struck down age-based firearms restrictions on 18-to-20-year-olds as unconstitutional.
The motion comes amid turmoil surrounding firearms laws in the Virgin Islands. In December 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the government of the Virgin Islands, the Virgin Islands Police Department, and Police Commissioner Mario Brooks, alleging the territory had systematically denied residents their Second Amendment rights by delaying license applications and imposing unconstitutional conditions.
In February, Governor Albert Bryan Jr. proposed the Second Amendment Rights and Public Safety Act in response to recent Supreme Court guidance and the federal lawsuit. In March, Brooks announced that VIPD had stopped conducting home inspections as part of the firearms licensing process.
The defense argues these developments underscore that the territory’s current firearms framework is in urgent need of reform and that court intervention is warranted.
Abramson faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of at least $10,000 if convicted on the firearms charge, along with up to seven years and a $10,000 fine on the ammunition charge.
