{"id":310911,"date":"2026-06-17T20:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/310911\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T20:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:57:10","slug":"florida-court-strikes-down-under-21-concealed-carry-ban-ag-james-uthmeier-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/310911\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida court strikes down under-21 concealed-carry ban, AG James Uthmeier says"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Adults under the age of 21 may soon be allowed to carry concealed firearms in Florida after the Fourth District Court of Appeal<\/a> ruled that a state law preventing them from obtaining concealed-carry permits is unconstitutional, Attorney General James Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n

In a post on X, Uthmeier said the court agreed with his office’s position that Florida’s law barring adults younger than 21 from carrying concealed firearms is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

In another win for the unalienable rights of Floridians, the 4th DCA agreed with our position that Florida\u2019s law banning adults under 21 from carrying a firearm is unconstitutional.Uthmeier said his office will work with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to implement the court’s order.<\/p>\n

The ruling stems from the case of an 18-year-old Broward County man who was convicted of carrying a concealed firearm. The appeals court found that Florida’s age restriction violates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding adults ages 18 to 20 and vacated the man’s conviction.<\/p>\n

In its opinion, the court ruled that adults ages 18 to 20 are part of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment and that the state failed to show a historical tradition of banning people in that age group from carrying firearms for self-defense. The court concluded that Florida’s law requiring individuals to be at least 21 years old to qualify for concealed carry is unconstitutional as applied to 18- to 20-year-olds.<\/p>\n

The decision follows an October 2025 ruling by Broward County Circuit Judge Frank Ledee<\/a>, who found that Florida’s prohibition on concealed carry by 18- to 20-year-olds violated the Second Amendment. Ledee dismissed a concealed-carry charge against a 19-year-old defendant, though the ruling applied only to that case unless upheld by a higher court.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit challenged a provision of Florida’s permitless-carry law that prohibits adults younger than 21 from legally carrying concealed firearms. Gun-rights advocates<\/a> argued the restriction infringed on the constitutional rights of legal adults.<\/p>\n

The issue has drawn criticism from gun-control advocates, who argue that allowing 18- to 20-year-olds to carry concealed firearms would weaken gun-safety measures enacted in Florida after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.<\/p>\n

The appellate court’s ruling is not yet final and could be subject to rehearing or further appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Adults under the age of 21 may soon be allowed to carry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-310911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310911","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=310911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}