Florida’s Under-21 Concealed Carry Ban Struck by State Court (1)

Florida’s ban on 18- to 20-year-olds carrying concealed weapons has been struck by a state appeals court, leaning on the Second Amendment and support from the state’s top cop.

Restricting concealed carry for this cohort excludes this segment of the same “‘political community’ as other law-abiding adults” from the rights to self-defense, and would make the “Second Amendment a ‘second-class’ right,” Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal Judge Spencer D. Levine wrote in his 18-page ruling.

A young man challenged the criminal case the state brought against him when he was 18 for carrying a concealed firearm and improper exhibition of a firearm. The dispute came to the panel in an unusual posture: undefended.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) refused to back up the state on appeal and urged the appeals court to dismiss. The court allowed the State Attorney’s Office of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit—consisting of Broward County—to advocate as amicus for upholding the state’s law.

Under the text and history and tradition analyses created by the landmark US Supreme Court decision N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the state appeals panel aligned itself with the federal Eighth Circuit and Third Circuit, which have ruled that the Second Amendment’s term “the people” covers all adult Americans, barring infringements on firearm rights to those eighteen and older.

But not all post-Bruen rulings have gone this way. Other courts have found the concept of a “minor” at America’s founding could give support for under-21 firearms restrictions due to the other restrictions—including voting—that states could apply to fundamental rights at the time the Second Amendment was ratified. One of those rulings came from the Eleventh Circuit, which upheld Florida’s under-21 firearms ban.

Levine said the Eleventh Circuit case was different because it dealt with purchasing, not carrying, weapons.

“We do not define adults today as starting at age 21 like adulthood was defined at the time of the founding,” he said. “Similarly, we do not define weapons of self-defense as being limited to muskets or firelocks.”

Chief Judge Jeffrey T. Kuntz and Judge Shannon K. Shaw concurred.

“Given the impact of gun crimes in the State of Florida—including the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in our community, which resulted in the tragic murders of 17 children and adults and severe injuries to 17 individuals who survived—we respectfully disagree with the position taken by the Office of the Attorney General,” Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor said in a statement issued in February. His office declined to comment beyond that statement.

Uthmeier said his office would work with Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to implement the court’s order. In a post on X he called the decision “another win for the unalienable rights of Floridians.”

Public defenders represented the appellant. They didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is Eubanks v. Florida, Fla. Dist. Ct. App., No. 4D2025-1698, 6/17/26.