Florida’s Attorney General Defies Long Guns Ban for Under-21

A gun violence prevention group is calling upon the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a legal challenge to Florida’s ban on individuals under 21 years of age purchasing long guns.

Brady, the gun safety group formerly known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Friday urging the justices to decline the opportunity to rule on the 2018 state law.

That provision was just one part of the wide-ranging Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Scott just weeks after 17 people were slain in the mass shooting in Parkland on Valentine’s Day in 2018.

James Uthmeier, appointed to serve as the state’s attorney general by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year, announced in March that he and the governor believe the law is unconstitutional, saying that if “the NRA decides to seek further review at SCOTUS, I am directing my office not to defend this law.”

The NRA filed its petition for certiorari in May. It calls for the Supreme Court justices to review the split among federal circuit courts over whether adults under 21 enjoy Second Amendment rights. The Third, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits have ruled that they do, while the Tenth and Eleventh circuits have upheld laws banning firearm purchases by adults under 21.

Jeffrey DeSousa, the acting solicitor general in the Florida Office of Legal Affairs, has so far filed two 30-day extensions in response to the NRA’s petition, with his response now due at the high court by Aug. 20.

The Brady group is criticizing Uthmeier for his refusal to defend the law.

“After the horrors at Stoneman Douglas in Parkland in 2018 and courageous advocacy by traumatized  survivors, the Republican majorities in the Florida Legislature and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis collaborated on a commonsense age requirement for purchasing and receiving firearms,” said Brady Chief Legal Officer Douglas Letter, forgetting that it was actually Rick Scott who signed the law.

“Not only have similar age restrictions existed since our founding as a Nation, they are consistent with modern scientific knowledge regarding physical brain development and our constantly expanding knowledge and understanding of mature brain functioning,” Letter said in a statement.

“In refusing to do his job, Attorney General Uthmeier shamefully denies these facts and denies the success of the law in saving lives and decreasing the rates of gun deaths of the state’s minors. The Supreme Court should deny the NRA’s profit-driven request, and allow this bipartisan success to continue.”

The Florida House in March passed a bill (HB 759) that would lower the age for individuals in Florida to purchase shotguns and rifles from 21 to 18. It was the third straight year the chamber has done so, but both times the legislation failed to become law because it never moved in the Florida Senate.

Bob Jarvis, professor of constitutional law at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law, says he does expect the state to file a response in the NRA case, and that there’s a parallel to how a group of blue states reacted to the evolving issue of same-sex marriage a decade ago.

“In the Obergefell case some years ago (involving same-sex marriage bans), the attorneys general of California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania (among others) refused to defend their state’s same-sex marriage bans,” he said. “Instead, they filed an amicus brief supporting Obergefell. I would expect Florida to do the same thing here (i.e., not defend Florida’s law and file an amicus brief in support of the NRA).”

–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix