Florida Attorney General Says State’s Waiting Period Laws Are Unconstitutional, Won’t Be Enforced

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier appears to have accomplished what state lawmakers were unable (and in some cases, unwilling) to do for the past several years: get rid of the state’s three-day waiting period on gun sales that was signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Scott after the Parkland shooting in 2018. 

Every government office, including mine, exists to protect your God-given rights as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

That’s why we’re settling a landmark federal case that declares Florida’s 3-day firearm purchase waiting period unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. https://t.co/9ZSZjhTO3m

— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) June 5, 2026

Uthmeier’s official announcement comes a day after Brian Kramer, who serves as the chief prosecutor for Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Gilchrist, Levy, and Union counties, told Alachua County officials that based on a judgment agreed to by both parties in a case called Dunn v. Glass, the “Attorney General and other defendants have agreed to the entry of a judgment declaring unconstitutional Florida’s statutory and constitutional waiting period provisions to the extent they require a firearm to be held beyond the time necessary to complete a background check.” 

The proposed judgment is based upon the conclusion that such waiting periods burden the right to keep and bear arms and cannot be justified under the historical-tradition analysis required by the United States Supreme Court’s modern day Second Amendment jurisprudence. 

As a result, Kramer said, his office will no longer prosecute violations of the state’s three-day waiting period, nor the five-day waiting period put in place in Alachua County a few years ago. 

Alachua County is one of six in the state that took advantage of language in the state’s waiting period law allowing them to establish a separate five-day waiting period for gun transfers conducted on public property (like gun shows). Broward, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia counties all have ordinances that are substantially similar to Alachua County’s, and based on Kramer’s letter it appears those ordinances are or soon will be null and void as well. 

This is not the first time that Uthmeier has used the courts to expand or restore the Second Amendment rights of Floridians. Last year, Uthmeier declined to appeal a decision by a Florida appellate court that ruled the state’s ban on open carry unconstitutional. Second Amendment advocates with groups like Florida Carry had been lobbying lawmakers for years to repeal the open carry ban, but were continually stymied by Republican leadership in the state Senate. 

The same is true of Florida’s waiting period law; years of lobbying for repeal, buy-in from the Florida House, and roadblocks from the Florida Senate President. Thankfully, Sen. Ben Albritton has no say in what the attorney general’s office agrees to in court, and lawmakers won’t be able to stand in the way of the judgment taking effect. 

Uthmeier has also declined to defend Florida’s ban on gun sales to adults under the age of 21, which has been the subject of litigation for several years now. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the statute, but the case has been sitting with four others at the Supreme Court for months now, and will likely be granted cert, vacated, and remanded to the lower courts after the Wolford and Hemani decisions are released in a few weeks. Once that happens, we could see another settlement similar to Dunn v. Glass, with Uthmeier agreeing with the plaintiffs that the gun ban for young adults violates the Second Amendment and cannot be enforced. 

I’m hugely impressed with what Uthmeier has done to protect the right to keep and bear arms while serving as Florida Attorney General, and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next… and the full-fledged freakout from anti-gunners over the AG’s agreement to undo the state’s waiting period laws.