A Florida appeals court just handed down a ruling that will be a huge win for gun rights supporters when it decided that a state law barring adults aged between 18 and 20 from carrying concealed firearms was unconstitutional.
The Fourth District Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled in Jaylen Tyrus Eubanks v. State of Florida that a state statute imposing the ban is unconstitutional and vacated Eubanks’ conviction for carrying a concealed firearm and sent the case back to the lower court.
The case started in 2024 when Broward County police stopped 18-year-old Jaylen Tyrus Eubanks after responding to a report of a person displaying a handgun. They found an unholstered firearm in his waistband and charged him with carrying a concealed firearm and improper exhibition of a firearm.
Eubanks’ attorneys challenged the concealed carry charge, arguing that the age restriction violated his Second Amendment rights. A trial court rejected this argument. The defendant pled no contest but reserved the right to appeal.
The appeals court found that the statute requiring concealed carry applicants to be “21 years of age or older” cannot stand under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association. The three-judge panel argued that the plain text of the Second Amendment protects the right of an 18 to 20-year-old to carry firearms in public.
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.
— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) June 17, 2026
We will not seek further review and will work with @FDACS to implement the court's order.
Judge Levine pointed out that the statute would make the Second Amendment a “second class right.”
The court further noted that 18-year-olds can serve in the military and are treated as adults under Florida law for most other purposes. There was also no historical tradition in U.S. gun law that supports banning this particular age group from carrying firearms. This is a key requirement established by the Bruen ruling.
“Eighteen- to 20-year-olds can defend the country without restriction but can only utilize their Second Amendment right to self-defense with severe restrictions,” the opinion states.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had already acknowledged that the law is unconstitutional and declined to defend it in court. “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,” he wrote in a post on X.
Other federal courts have handed down similar rulings. The Eighth Circuit ruling in Worth v. Jacobson and the Third Circuit’s ruling in Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police both struck down similar age-based restrictions on carrying guns.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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