James Uthmeier says AG office will stand down on defending under-21 gun buy ban

Florida’s Attorney General says he’s not going to continue to defend at least one law against challenge.

In a statement on social media Friday, James Uthmeier said Florida’s post-Parkland prohibition on people under the age of 21 buying guns was not something his office would keep litigating, as he personally believes “restricting the right of law-abiding adults to purchase firearms is unconstitutional.”

“If the NRA decides to seek further review at SCOTUS, I am directing my office not to defend this law. Men and women old enough to fight and die for our country should be able to purchase firearms to defend themselves and their families,” Uthmeier said Friday.

The National Rifle Association and Radford Fant, the son of former state Rep. Jay Fant of Jacksonville, filed suit back in 2018 challenging the state’s then new prohibition in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act on people who aren’t old enough to drink legally buying guns.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals released its ruling Friday upholding the state law the AG doesn’t want to defend.

“The Florida law that prohibits minors from purchasing fire￾arms does not violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments be￾cause it is consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation,” argues the majority.

The argument is that minors have proven at times to not be trustworthy when it comes to owning firearms.

“From the Founding to the late-nineteenth century, our law limited the purchase of firearms by minors in different ways. The Florida law also limits the purchase of firearms by minors. And it does so for the same reason: to stop immature and impulsive individuals, like (Parkland shooter) Nikolas Cruz, from harming themselves and others with deadly weapons. Those similarities are sufficient to confirm the constitutionality of the Florida law.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis has been opposed to this law since his campaign for Governor in 2018. He has stepped up efforts this year to prod the Legislature into changing it, but as has been the case throughout his time in office, leadership has resisted a change.

While lawmakers may not want to move, the AG’s decision to stand down in defending a law he and the Governor find objectionable appears to be a way to create an appellate workaround that in other contexts may be called “judicial activism,” but which will accomplish a long-standing policy aim of the executive branch.