Gov. DeSantis backs James Uthmeier’s decision not to defend under-21 long gun ban

If you’re old enough to fight in a war, you’re old enough to buy a gun in Florida.

That’s Gov. Ron DeSantis’ take on what he calls a “good-faith position” from his appointed Attorney General, who has said he won’t defend a Florida law enacted to stop people under the age of 21 from buying long guns.

“There’s a lot of people who have contested the constitutionality of suspending entirely someone’s right under an enumerated provision of the Constitution,” DeSantis said in Tampa.

“It’s not just saying, ‘I have a right to this.’ There’s an enumerated provision. You’ve got people that are 18 years old that will be sent halfway around the world to carry a rifle in the Marine Corps, then they finish that, and they’re 20, and they can’t buy a rifle to go hunt. I think that’s a big problem.”

In March, Attorney General James Uthmeier said he wouldn’t defend the law passed after the Parkland school shooting in 2018, essentially urging the National Rifle Association (NRA) to take it to the Supreme Court, as they have attempted more recently.

“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.

The National Rifle Association and Radford Fant, the son of former Rep. Jay Fant of Jacksonville, filed suit in 2018 challenging the state’s then-new prohibition in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, barring people under 21 from buying guns.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals released a ruling in March upholding the state law that Uthmeier doesn’t want to defend.

“The Florida law that prohibits minors from purchasing firearms does not violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments because it is consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation,” the majority argued.

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 court said.

“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.”