Florida Attorney General Uthmeier Explains Why Some Felons’ Gun Rights Are More Equal Than Others

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is elaborating on his newly espoused legal opinion that Florida’s ban on felons possessing firearms violates the Second Amendment when it comes to those who have committed nonviolent felony offenses.

In a supplemental brief filed Wednesday night, Uthmeier urges the state’s First District Court of Appeal to reverse the conviction of Christopher Morgan after he pleaded no contest to his felon-possession charge in 2025.

In 2007, Morgan was convicted of carrying a firearm without a license in Pennsylvania — a third-degree felony under Pennsylvania law. Then, in 2022 while driving down Monroe Street in Tallahassee, he was pulled over by a police officer and admitted that he possessed a gun in the central console of his car, and volunteered that he had been convicted of the Pennsylvania felony, which the officer was able to confirm. The officer found an unloaded Glock 19 with two magazines. Morgan was arrested for possessing the firearm.

After he was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, Morgan moved to dismiss, arguing that Florida’s statute 790.23 was unconstitutional. After the court denied his motion, he entered his no-contest plea but reserved the right to appeal the denial early last year. Following that appeal, Uthmeier’s office responded in a legal brief on Sept. 30, 2025, defending Morgan’s conviction.

But last month, the attorney general filed a brief writing that, upon further review, he believed that, as a nonviolent felon, Morgan was being deprived of his Second Amendment rights. He asked the court if his office could file a supplemental brief. The court agreed, and he submitted that on Wednesday night.

In the 37-page supplemental brief, Uthmeier makes the case that Morgan does not present a risk to public safety. He again cites the fact that the only blemish on his record is his felony conviction in Pennsylvania for carrying a firearm without a license.

“The State arrives at this conclusion for three reasons,” he writes. “First, the text of the Second Amendment covers Morgan’s act of carrying a concealed firearm. Second, laws disarming nondangerous felons are not consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Third, Morgan’s out-of-state felony conviction for carrying a firearm without a license does not sufficiently evince dangerousness, risk to public safety, or proclivity for breaching the peace sufficient to justify disarming him. Nor does any other evidence in the record.”

Florida law does allow felons who have completed all terms of their sentence to apply to get their gun rights back, but that process only begins after a waiting period of at least eight years from the time of the completion of their sentence. Attorneys for felons hoping to get their Second Amendment rights restored say that it often takes much longer to land their cases before the Florida Office of Executive Clemency.

In addition to state law, federal law bans individuals convicted of a felonies from possessing firearms. A federal appeals court judge predicted in 2024 that  “[o]ne day — likely sooner, rather than later — the Supreme Court will address the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(1) or otherwise provide clearer guidance on whether felons are protected by the Second Amendment.”

Uthmeier’s opinion that only dangerous felons should lose their rights to possess a firearm has been cheered by Second Amendment supporters.

“Attorney General Pam Bondi needs to sit up and take notes! This is what a REAL pro-gun attorney general looks like,” said Gun Owners of America in a comment on social media last month.

–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix