{"id":282057,"date":"2026-05-23T14:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/282057\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T14:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:52:18","slug":"florida-attorney-general-james-uthmeier-comments-on-hoa-gun-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/282057\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier comments on HOA gun letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said a Tradition Community Association Inc. letter on prohibiting guns<\/a> in common areas “violates Florida law.”<\/p>\n

He posed his comment in a May 21 statement<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n

The rule about firearms applies to all owners, tenants, guests, contractors while in common area facilities.<\/p>\n

In the statement, Uthmeier referred to Florida Statute 790.251(4)(e)<\/a>, which states “no public or private employer may terminate the employment of or otherwise discriminate against an employee, or expel a customer or invitee for exercising his or her constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”<\/p>\n

Uthmeier said the rule infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right and is un-enforceable. He gave the association until June 1 to confirm in writing that it will not enforce the firearm rule, and if the association refuses he and his office will “take appropriate action to enforce the law.”<\/p>\n

Port St. Lucie Police Department released a statement May 15 stating the letter is not Florida law, therefore, not enforced by the agency.<\/p>\n

“The Port St. Lucie Police Department enforces Florida state law \u2014 not private HOA policies or community association rules,” the agency stated in the\u00a0news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Can you open carry in Florida?<\/p>\n

A state appeals court on Sept. 10, 2025, ruled that Florida\u2019s ban on\u00a0openly carrying guns is unconstitutional<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Open-carry means you can publicly carry a legally owned firearm that is kept in plain sight or partially concealed, usually holstered. In Florida, openly carrying a firearm has been a second-degree misdemeanor with a $500 fine or a maximum of 60 days in jail.<\/p>\n

Olivia Franklin<\/a>\u00a0is TCPalm\u2019s trending reporter.\u00a0You can contact her at\u00a0olivia.franklin@tcpalm.com,\u00a0317-627-8048\u00a0or follow her on X\u00a0@Livvvvv_5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida Attorney General gives statement on Port St. Lucie HOA letter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said a Tradition Community Association Inc. letter on prohibiting guns in common areas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,7912,30,29,14279,4260,1079],"class_list":["post-282057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-attorney-general","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-statute","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-port-st-lucie-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}