[BREAKING] Florida court says 18-year-olds have same gun rights as other adults

A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday that the state's ban on carrying concealed weapons for adults ages 18 to 20 violates the Second Amendment, concluding that young adults are entitled to the same constitutional protections as law-abiding adults over age 20.

In a broad opinion, the court said 18-year-olds can serve in the military and defend the nation, but face restrictions on their ability to exercise the same self-defense rights available to older adults.

“Young people between the ages of 18 and 20 can defend the country without restrictions, but they can only use their Second Amendment right to self-defense with severe restrictions,” Judge Spencer D.

Levine wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeals.

"Restricting the right to self-defense to 18- to 20-year-olds (members of the same 'political community' as other law-abiding adults) would make the Second Amendment a 'second-class' right," Levine wrote.

The ruling comes after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier declined to defend the law earlier this year.

“In another victory for the inalienable rights of Floridians, the 4th DCA agreed with our position that Florida's law prohibiting adults under the age of 21 from concealing a firearm is unconstitutional,” Uthmeier wrote in The case arose from the 2024 arrest of Jaylen Eubanks, who was 18 years old at the time.

According to the opinion, officers responding to a report of a person displaying a gun stopped Eubanks and found a drawn firearm in his waistband.

He was charged with carrying a concealed firearm and improper display of a firearm.

Eubanks contested the concealed carry charge, arguing that Florida's age restriction violated the Second Amendment.

The restriction was enacted following the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 17 people were killed.

A trial court rejected Eubanks' argument, but the appeals court reversed the argument.

Citing Supreme Court precedents including Heller, Bruen and Rahimi, the court said that adults ages 18 to 20 are among “the persons” protected by the Second Amendment and that Florida did not identify a historical tradition supporting the restriction.

The panel also pointed to founding-era militia laws that required many 18-year-old men to serve while carrying weapons.

“The fact that young adults had to serve in the militia indicates that founding-era legislators believed that such young men could, and indeed should, own and bear arms,” the opinion states.

The court rejected arguments that concerns about firearm misuse among younger adults justified the restriction, saying Florida did not identify a historical tradition supporting the law and that adults ages 18 to 20 could not be treated as categories historically subject to firearms restrictions, such as felons or the mentally ill.

“Anyone who turns 18 can and is encouraged, for example, to join the military to defend our country,” Levine wrote.

"Yet, those same law-abiding adults are burdened in their ability to exercise the same Second Amendment rights that other adults have." The court overturned Eubanks' concealed carry conviction and remanded the case for further proceedings.

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