Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal unanimously threw out the state's post-Parkland ban on concealed carry for adults ages 18 to 20, and the state's own attorney general is not fighting it.
The ruling came down this week. Judge Spencer D. Levine, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, held that Floridians between 18 and 20 are part of "the people" the Second Amendment protects, full stop. The state offered no historical tradition, reaching back to the founding era, that would justify stripping that age group of the right to carry for self-defense. Under the Supreme Court's 2022 framework in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, that failure is fatal to the law.
Levine's language was direct. "Eighteen- to 20-year-olds can defend the country without restriction," he wrote, "but can only utilize their Second Amendment right to self-defense with severe restrictions." The panel went further, warning that treating the right to bear arms as lesser than other constitutional guarantees would reduce the Second Amendment to a "second-class" right, a phrase the Supreme Court itself has used.
The case began with the 2024 arrest of Jaylen Eubanks, who was 18 years old when Broward County police responded to a report involving a handgun. A trial court rejected his constitutional challenge. The Fourth DCA reversed his concealed-carry conviction outright and sent the case back for further proceedings.
The restriction Eubanks challenged was part of the sweeping gun-control package Florida's Republican-controlled legislature passed in March 2018, weeks after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland killed 17 people. Among other provisions, that law raised the minimum age for all firearm purchases in Florida to 21 and banned adults under 21 from obtaining concealed-carry permits. It was, at the time, one of the most significant gun-control expansions any red state had enacted in a generation.
Eight years later, a unanimous appeals court has concluded it cannot survive constitutional scrutiny. The panel cited Heller, Bruen, and the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in United States v. Rahimi as the controlling precedents. The reasoning is the same one courts across the country have applied since Bruen: if there is no historical analogue from the founding era, the restriction falls.
Uthmeier's Decision Not to Fight It
What makes this case stand out is not just the ruling. It is what the state chose to do before the ruling even came.
Attorney General James Uthmeier declined to defend the age restriction in the appellate court. His office had already concluded the law was unconstitutional, and rather than mounting a defense, Uthmeier signaled agreement with the challenge. After the panel issued its decision, he announced the state will not seek further review and directed the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which administers the state's concealed-carry permit system, to implement the ruling.
That is a significant posture. Attorneys general routinely defend state statutes in court even when they personally disagree with them, on the theory that the legislature's product deserves a legal defense. Uthmeier made a different calculation. The law, in his office's view, was indefensible under current Second Amendment doctrine, and he declined to spend state resources pretending otherwise.
It is also a clear marker of where Florida's Republican leadership now stands on gun rights, nearly a decade after Parkland pushed the state in a different direction. Governor Ron DeSantis signed constitutional carry into law in 2023. The legislature has moved steadily toward expanding gun rights rather than contracting them. Uthmeier's non-appeal fits the pattern.
The practical consequence is immediate. Adults 18 to 20 in Florida who meet all other legal requirements can now apply for concealed-carry permits. The Department of Agriculture has its marching orders.
The broader question is what the ruling signals for other states. Several states maintain similar age-based restrictions on concealed carry or handgun purchases. Since Bruen, courts have split on the question, with some striking such laws and others upholding them. Florida's Fourth DCA has now added a clear, unanimous voice to the side that finds no historical tradition supporting them. That reasoning is available to any court examining the same question elsewhere, and challengers in other states will cite it.
A conflict among circuits or among state appellate courts on this precise issue could eventually draw the Supreme Court's attention. For now, in Florida, the question is settled. The Parkland-era age restriction is gone, the attorney general supports the outcome, and the permits will follow.
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