TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Saying the restriction is “consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation,” a federal appeals court on Friday upheld the constitutionality of a Florida law that raised the minimum age to purchase rifles and other long guns from 18 to 21.
The 8-4 ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came after seven years of legal wrangling in the National Rifle Association’s challenge to a 2018 law passed after a mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 students and faculty members.
Nikolas Cruz, who was 19 at the time, used a semiautomatic rifle to gun down the victims at his former school. The NRA filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the gun-age restriction shortly after the law passed.
Friday’s ruling by the full Atlanta-based appeals court upheld a three-judge panel’s decision and outlined the history of the nation’s gun laws, from its founding to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions setting guidelines for determining how to apply the Second Amendment. While the law barred people under 21 from buying rifles and long guns, they still can receive them, for example, as gifts from family members.
“From this history emerges a straightforward conclusion: the Florida law is consistent with our regulatory tradition in why and how it burdens the right of minors to keep and bear arms,” Chief Judge William Pryor wrote. “Because minors have yet to reach the age of reason, the Florida law prohibits them from purchasing firearms, yet it allows them to receive firearms from their parents or another responsible adult.”
Judges Adalberto Jordan, Robin Rosenbaum, Jill Pryor, Kevin Newsom, Britt Grant, Nancy Abudu and Charles Wilson joined the majority opinion. Judge Andrew Brasher wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Judges Elizabeth Branch, Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck.
The majority ruling relied heavily on U.S. Supreme Court standards, established in recent cases, saying that Second Amendment restrictions must be rooted in the “prevailing understanding” of gun rights from the nation’s founding era.
“The founders’ generation shared the view that minors lacked the reason and judgment necessary to be trusted with legal rights,” William Pryor wrote.
The chief judge noted that, at the time of the founding, minors generally could not purchase guns because they were deemed to lack the judgment and discretion to enter contracts and that minors were subject to the power of their parents.
The opinion noted that the Florida law also is consistent with the country’s regulatory tradition because it allows minors to possess rifles and long guns although they are prohibited from purchasing them.
The 2018 law “burdens the right no more than … historical restrictions because it prohibits purchase but preserves access to firearms with parental consent,” William Pryor wrote.
“From the founding to the late-19th 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 Nikolas Cruz, from harming themselves and others with deadly weapons. Those similarities are sufficient to confirm the constitutionality of the Florida law,” the majority ruling said.
But Brasher, in a dissent, disputed the historical roots of the age restriction.
Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
©2025 Cox Media Group
