A federal judge in Tampa has refused to sign off on a deal in which Florida’s own top law enforcement officials agreed that the state’s mandatory three-day waiting period on firearms purchases violates the Second Amendment and refused to defend it in court.
Instead of issuing a ruling, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday invited other parties, including two anti-gunner organizations, to defend the law in court.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by four Florida gun buyers, two firearms retailers, and the National Rifle Association (NRA), which sued the state’s Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass, Attorney General James Uthmeier, and 20 state attorneys in August 2025.
The suit challenges the mandatory three-day wait between the purchase and delivery of a firearm prescribed by the Florida Constitution and implemented by Florida Statutes. Florida voters wrote the three-day handgun wait into the state constitution in 1990, and the Legislature expanded it to all firearms in 2018, according to the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.
On June 5, 2026, the defendant officials served a Rule 68 offer of judgment, which the plaintiffs accepted the same day, and on June 30, the parties jointly asked the court to enter it. The judgment would have declared the waiting-period provisions unconstitutional to the extent they require retailers to hold a firearm beyond the time required to perform a background check.
The judgment would also have permanently prohibited enforcement of the law, awarded the plaintiffs $10,000 in attorney fees and costs, and awarded no damages. Uthmeier announced the agreement the day it was filed.
Merryday denied the joint motion on Oct. 28, 2026, and directed the clerk not to enter the judgment. He reasoned that a declaration that state law is unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against its enforcement are not available through Rule 68 without full and adversarial presentation of the issues.
“Based on a complaint, an answer, and the acceptance of an offer of judgment but without adversarial briefing or other argument and despite an array of opinion among the circuits on the governing issue in the action, the parties request a summary adjudication on a matter currently the subject of intense debate and litigation around the country, that affects the United States and the Florida constitutions, and that resolves the validity of a Florida statute,” Merryday wrote in his ruling.
Florida AG @JamesUthmeierFL said the gun purchase waiting period is unconstitutional. Judge Steven Merryday left it in place. Gun owners still have to wait. @ByronDonalds wants it repealed. Nov. 3: Your rights can’t wait. VOTE FOR PRO-GUN CANDIDATES WANTING IT REPEALED! https://t.co/GqoRapgNq3
— Luis Valdes (@RealFLGunLobby) November 2, 2026
The judge’s order invites Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida House of Representatives, the Florida Senate, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to participate as amici curiae.
The waiting period remains in effect, and no court has ruled on its constitutionality. One defendant, State Attorney Brian Kramer, had already told Alachua County in June that he would not enforce its five-day county waiting period because of the pending agreement.