It’s Come to This: After Failure of GOP Supermajority, Florida’s AG Asks SCOTUS to Overturn State’s Gun Sales Ban for Adults Under 21

A ban on long gun sales to adults under 21 years of age was one of the gun control measures signed into law in Florida during the manic do something aftermath of the Parkland shooting in 2018. It’s a clearly unconstitutional limitation on firearm ownership on a small segment of adults based strictly on their age. Gun rights supporters have been working ever since to get it repealed.

Legislate in haste, repent at leisure.

You might think that in a deep red state like Florida with solid GOP supermajorities in both the House and Senate, undoing that damage wouldn’t be too difficult. You’d be wrong. While the House voted to repeal the ban on sales for long guns in March, the Senate — which Republicans control by a 28 to 12 margin — in a noteworthy showing of conspicuous political cowardice, hasn’t found a way to make that happen.

Fortunately for Sunshine State residents, the Florida legislature isn’t their only hope for restoration at least some of their Second Amendment rights. The NRA filed suit challenging the gun sales ban years ago and it’s been winding its way through the courts. In March, however, the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the sales ban is constitutional. The NRA then filed for cert with the Supreme Court.

Following the 11th Circuit ruling, Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier, a gun rights supporter, announced that he wouldn’t defend the the law if it’s taken up by SCOTUS. Yesterday, however, he went one better . . .

In a highly unusual move, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Wednesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a 2018 state law that prevents people under age 21 from buying rifles and other long guns.

Lawyers in Uthmeier’s office, which typically defends state laws, filed a 17-page brief arguing the Supreme Court should take up an appeal by the National Rifle Association that contends the law violates Second Amendment rights.

As the AG’s brief to the Supreme Court states . . .

Certiorari is warranted. The decision below is incorrect; this issue has divided the courts of appeals and is critically important to the civil liberties of young adults; and this case presents a suitable vehicle. The Court should therefore take this opportunity to declare Florida’s purchase ban invalid to the extent it is applied against legal adults. 

So to sum up, we have an ultra-red state with overwhelming GOP control in both houses of the legislature and a governor willing to sign a bill that would repeal a clearly unconstitutional limit on some Floridians’ Second Amendment rights. The only thing missing is the political will of allegedly pro-2A legislators to make that happen.

Now young adults in Florida are forced to hope that the Supreme Court takes the case and finds in their favor. That’s a longshot at best, but at least AG Uthmeier gives them a slim chance of regaining what was lost in 2018.

The NRA issued this statement . . .

In May, the National Rifle Association petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear NRA v. Glass, our challenge to Florida’s ban on firearm purchases by adults under 21.

Yesterday, Florida filed its response to our petition. In an extraordinary move, the state urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, and to strike down its own law.

The brief first argues that “the en banc Eleventh Circuit erred in upholding Florida’s ban” because it identified no Founding Era law that restricted the right of 18-to-20-year-olds or adults of any age to purchase arms. Rather, “Founding-era evidence affirmatively demonstrates that early Americans trusted 18-to-20-year-olds with firearms and, indeed, expected them to possess and even purchase guns.”

The brief next emphasizes that “certiorari is also warranted because the decision below widens a circuit split on this issue.” The Fourth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have upheld restrictions on 18-to-20-year-olds, while the Third, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits have held them unconstitutional.

Lastly, Florida argues that our “petition presents a suitable vehicle for resolving” the “important question” of whether young adults have Second Amendment rights, because “the parties’ Second Amendment arguments were fully briefed and argued at every stage of this litigation.”

The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to hear our case this fall.