Gun-safety groups call on State Senate to block bill lowering age to buy long guns to 18
A special report from Tallahassee-based Florida Phoenix news service
By Mitch Perry
A dozen gun-violence prevention groups are calling upon Florida Senate President Ben Albritton to once again reject a proposal from the Florida House to lower the age to purchase a long gun from 21 to 18 years old.
A measure (HB 133) that would repeal the 2018 law that raised the legal age for such purchases to 21 has already passed two committees in the Florida House and is now up for a vote in the full House of Representatives when the Legislature kicks off the 2026 session next month.
That regulation is part of a package of gun safety reforms enacted by the GOP-controlled Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Scott in 2018. The bipartisan vote approving those measures came just weeks after a 19-year-old legally purchased an AR-15 and murdered 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
The Florida House has passed similar measures over the past three legislative sessions, but each time they have died in the Florida Senate. And with four weeks left before the 2026 legislative session commences, no Senate companion measure has yet been filed.
“President Albritton, we urge you to use your authority as Senate President to prevent HB 133 from becoming law,” reads a portion of the letter. “Remember the priorities made after our state’s darkest day. Remember those who buried their loved ones because a teenager could access a gun. Honor the bipartisan commitment lawmakers made in 2018: never again. Refuse to file a companion bill to HB 133, as you have done in previous years.”
Among the groups signing the letter are March For Our Lives, Brady Florida, the League of Women Voters Florida, and the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus.
“Young people in Florida deserve to grow up without wondering whether the teenager sitting next to them can legally buy a weapon of war,” said March for Our Lives executive director and Parkland survivor Jackie Corin in a statement. “We call on state leaders to block HB 133 and to honor the promises they made to our communities and to the lives already lost.”
Although the Senate has shown no inclination in the past to approve the measure, gun-safety advocates are concerned right now that the Senate might swallow the idea in a tradeoff with the House to curb the open carrying of firearms.
A three-judge panel of the Florida First District Court of Appeal ruled in September that the state’s 1987 law banning open carry in Florida was unconstitutional. Attorney General James Uthmeier immediately declared that open carry was now the law in the state, but that change hasn’t been put into statute yet. Second Amendment groups have warned that the Legislature should not add any restrictive regulations on open carry when and if they enact a bill implementing the policy change.
“Interesting question,” Albritton responded on Dec. 8 when asked by a reporter if there were negotiations between the House and Senate about such a trade-off. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Albritton is an NRA member who has disclosed that he has a concealed-weapons license, but he has also said that he has been “profoundly” affected by getting to know the parents of one of the teenage victims of the Parkland shooting massacre.
Florida Phoenix is a Tallahassee-based online news service. This article is reprinted in Tropic Press with their permission. The reporter on this story, Mitch Perry, has covered politics and government in Florida for more than two decades. Most recently he is the former politics reporter for Bay News 9. He has also worked at Florida Politics, Creative Loafing and WMNF Radio in Tampa. He was also part of the original staff when the Florida Phoenix was created in 2018. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. For more information about Florida Phoenix, click here:
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