Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeals handed gun owners a major Second Amendment win, but Attorney General James Uthmeier made the ruling even more important with one sentence on X: the state will not seek further review.

That means Florida is not planning to keep fighting to preserve its ban on otherwise eligible adults under 21 carrying a concealed firearm. Instead, Uthmeier said his office will work with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to implement the court’s order.

“In another win for the unalienable rights of Floridians, the 4th DCA agreed with our position that Florida’s law banning adults under 21 from conceal carrying a firearm is unconstitutional,” Uthmeier wrote. “We will not seek further review and will work with @FDACS to implement the court’s order.”

In another win for the unalienable rights of Floridians, the 4th DCA agreed with our position that Florida’s law banning adults under 21 from conceal carrying a firearm is unconstitutional.

We will not seek further review and will work with @FDACS to implement the court’s order.

— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) June 17, 2026

That statement turns Jaylen Tyrus Eubanks v. State of Florida from an important appellate ruling into something much more important for Florida gun owners.

The opinion itself says it is “not final until disposition of timely-filed motion for rehearing,” which is standard appellate language. But the Attorney General’s public decision not to seek further review removes the biggest question hanging over the case.

The state is not appealing. It is moving toward implementation.

The Fourth DCA ruled that Florida’s concealed-carry age restriction is unconstitutional as applied to law-abiding adults ages 18 to 20. The case targets section 790.06(2)(b), Florida Statutes, which requires a person to be 21 or older to qualify for a concealed weapon or firearm license.

That age requirement mattered even after Florida adopted permitless carry. Florida’s permitless carry law still requires an unlicensed person to satisfy the criteria for receiving and maintaining a concealed carry license. One of those criteria was being 21. So the state created a legal trap: adults under 21 were old enough to be treated as adults, but not old enough to satisfy the state’s carry rules. The Fourth DCA rejected that scheme.

“Can law-abiding adults, aged 18 to 20, be prohibited from exercising their Second Amendment rights to self-defense available to other law-abiding adults?” Judge Spencer D. Levine wrote for the court. “The plain text of the Constitution and our country’s history and traditions say no.”

Florida allows 18-year-olds to vote. Florida allows 18-year-olds to join the military, shoulder adult responsibilities, and face adult consequences. Yet when the right at issue was armed self-defense, the state treated those same adults like constitutional children.

Eubanks was 18 when he was arrested in Broward County after police responded to a report involving a handgun. Officers found an unholstered handgun on his waist. He was charged with carrying a concealed firearm and improper exhibition of a firearm. He challenged the concealed-carry charge, arguing that Florida’s categorical ban on 18-to-20-year-old adults carrying concealed firearms violated the Second Amendment. The trial court rejected his argument. The Fourth DCA reversed.

The court applied the Supreme Court’s post-Bruen framework. First, it asked whether the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the conduct. The answer was yes. Adults ages 18 to 20 are part of “the people,” and public carry falls within the right to “bear arms.”

Then the burden shifted to the government to prove that Florida’s restriction was consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The state could not do it.

The opinion leaned on recent federal appellate decisions, including Worth v. Jacobson from the Eighth Circuit and Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police from the Third Circuit, both of which recognized that 18-to-20-year-old adults are protected by the Second Amendment. The court also noted that Founding-era militia laws required young adults to arm themselves, not wait until their 21st birthday before exercising a constitutional right.

That history is devastating to modern gun-control arguments. The same age group that anti-gun politicians now claim is too young to carry was historically expected to appear armed for militia service. America’s tradition was not disarmament of young adults. It was responsibility, arms, and duty.

The State Attorney’s Office tried to defend the restriction by arguing that 18-to-20-year-olds were considered minors at the Founding and that young adults disproportionately misuse firearms. The court rejected that public-safety shortcut. Under Bruen, the government does not get to save a gun law by waving around statistics and saying, “Trust us.” It must show a historical tradition that justifies the restriction.

The Fourth DCA also relied on Rahimi for an important point: the government may disarm people who are found to pose a credible threat, but it cannot simply declare an entire class of adult citizens “irresponsible” and strip them of a right. That is exactly what Florida’s law did.

The court concluded that section 790.06(2)(b) is facially unconstitutional as applied to 18-to-20-year-olds and vacated Eubanks’ concealed-carry conviction.

Uthmeier’s announcement is the part Florida gun owners should watch now. The Attorney General is saying the state will not keep this case alive through further appellate review and will instead work with FDACS, the agency that handles Florida concealed weapon/firearm licensing, to implement the order.

That does not mean every 18-year-old can walk into a gun shop and buy a handgun from a federally licensed dealer. Federal handgun sales restrictions still exist. This case is about Florida’s carry scheme and whether the state can deny otherwise eligible adults under 21 the same public-carry rights available to other adults. The answer from the Fourth DCA is no.

With the Attorney General declining to appeal, the answer from the state appears to be: Florida will comply.

Young adults can defend the country. They can vote for the politicians who write the laws. They can be prosecuted as adults. Florida can no longer treat them as adults for every burden of citizenship while treating them like children when they want to exercise the Second Amendment.

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About Duncan Johnson:

Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.