Key Takeaways
- Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that adults aged 18 to 20 can carry concealed firearms, overturning the state’s 21-and-older requirement.
- The court found the minimum age provision unconstitutional, allowing young adults to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
- Florida’s Attorney General agreed with the ruling and will not appeal, leading to immediate implementation of the decision statewide.
- The case arose from Broward County, following an incident where an 18-year-old was charged for carrying a concealed firearm.
- The ruling aligns with the court’s view that young adults should have the same self-defense rights as older adults.
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that adults aged 18 to 20 cannot be barred from carrying a concealed firearm, striking down the state’s 21-and-older requirement as a violation of the Second Amendment.
The court held that section 790.06(2)(b), Florida Statutes, the provision setting 21 as the minimum age for a concealed carry license, is facially unconstitutional as it applies to 18- to 20-year-olds. Because Florida’s permitless carry law still requires unlicensed carriers to meet the license criteria, that age floor had locked younger adults out of legal concealed carry entirely.
Judge Spencer D. Levine wrote for the panel. “The plain text of the Constitution and our country’s history and traditions say no,” he wrote, answering whether young adults can be denied the same self-defense rights as everyone else. Chief Judge Jeffrey T. Kuntz and Judge Shannon K. Shaw concurred.
The case came out of Broward County. In 2024, police responded to a call about a handgun and detained Jaylen Eubanks, who was 18 at the time. Officers found a handgun at his waist. He was charged with carrying a concealed firearm and improper exhibition of a firearm. He pled no contest but reserved his right to appeal the concealed carry charge on Second Amendment grounds. The court vacated only that concealed carry conviction. The improper exhibition count was not appealed and stands.
The panel applied the framework from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. First, it found that 18- to 20-year-olds are part of “the people” the Second Amendment protects, and that public carry falls within the right to bear arms. Then it put the burden on the government to show a historical tradition supporting the ban. The state could not.
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had already conceded the point. His office declined to defend the statute on appeal, agreeing it could not stand. After the ruling, Uthmeier said the state “will not seek further review” and would work with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to put the decision into effect.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office took the other side. It filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the age limit, arguing that those under 21 were treated as minors at the founding and that young adults misuse firearms at higher rates. Citing the 2018 Parkland shooting, the office said it “respectfully disagree[d] with the position taken by the Office of the Attorney General.” The court rejected the public-safety argument, noting that Bruen does not let the government save a gun law with statistics alone.
I have said it before. An adult is an adult. An 18-year-old can enlist and carry a rifle in defense of this country, vote, and sign a contract. Telling that same citizen there was no lawful way to carry a firearm for self-defense was never going to survive honest constitutional scrutiny. The court made the same point, observing that these young adults can defend the nation without restriction yet faced severe limits on defending themselves.
With the Attorney General declining to appeal, the decision stands and applies across Florida. I will be watching how the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services implements it, and whether the state’s remaining age-based gun restrictions fall next.
Read the full article here
