TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a legal opinion on Friday, November 13, 2026 concluding that Florida's ban on bump-fire stocks violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and announced that his office will not defend a conviction under the statute. Uthmeier published the opinion and announced it himself on his official X account — a primary source for what his office has decided — and The Gun Writer reported the opinion the same day, quoting the Attorney General's post and the opinion letter in full.

Source: Attorney General James Uthmeier on X

"People are being arrested and prosecuted under a 2018 law that banned 'bump stocks,'" Uthmeier said in his post. "As currently written, the overly broad law appears to restrict the use of trigger enhancements used by firearms owners for lawful purposes, subjecting them to five years in prison. Today, my office issued a legal opinion recognizing the law as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, and this office will not defend a conviction under the statute going forward." The post does not name any individual case or give a number of prosecutions.

What the opinion actually says

"This opinion resolves the following question of law: whether the bump-fire stock prohibition in section 790.222, Florida Statutes, contravenes the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution," Uthmeier wrote in the opinion letter. "After careful consideration, I have determined it does." The opinion's conclusion, as published, reads: "Section 790.222 therefore violates the Second Amendment and cannot be lawfully enforced by Executive Branch officials in Florida. This Office will not defend a conviction under section 790.222."

The opinion relies on the Supreme Court's modern Second Amendment framework — the text-and-history test from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen — and on Garland v. Cargill, the 2024 Supreme Court decision that struck down the federal rule treating bump-stock-equipped rifles as machine guns, holding that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had exceeded its statutory authority. Cargill was a statutory ruling, not a constitutional one; Uthmeier's opinion goes a step further for Florida law by resting on the Second Amendment itself.

The law on the books since Parkland

Section 790.222 bans importing, transferring, distributing, selling, keeping for sale, offering for sale, possessing or giving away a bump-fire stock in Florida, and makes a violation a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison under section 775.082. A bump-fire stock replaces a rifle's standard stock and uses the weapon's recoil to slide the rifle back and forth, bumping the trigger repeatedly and sharply increasing the rate of fire of a semi-automatic rifle.

The ban was created in 2018 by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, the sweeping school-safety and gun law Florida passed after the Parkland school shooting, signed by then-Governor Rick Scott, now a U.S. Senator. The Gun Writer noted the statute has not been used much since 2018 — which makes the Attorney General's statement that people are currently being arrested and prosecuted under it the factual core of Friday's announcement, though no cases were named.

What this does — and does not — change

In practice, that posture matters at several points. Prosecutors deciding whether to file or continue a bump-stock charge now do so knowing the Attorney General — whose office handles criminal appeals in Florida — will not defend a resulting conviction. Anyone already convicted under the statute and appealing gains a powerful concession from the state itself. And police and state attorneys have been told, in writing, that the state's chief legal officer considers enforcement unconstitutional.

The move also fits a pattern in Uthmeier's tenure: earlier this year his office declined to defend Florida's under-21 concealed-carry restriction after an appeals court struck it down, and conceded a federal challenge to the state's handgun waiting period. Friday's opinion, however, goes further — it is not a reaction to a court loss, but the Attorney General reaching the constitutional conclusion himself, before any Florida court has ruled on section 790.222.

What happens next

No court has yet struck down section 790.222, and the statute stays on the books unless the Legislature repeals it or a judge invalidates it in a live case. The next tests are concrete: whether local state attorneys keep filing bump-stock charges, whether any pending prosecution is dropped or challenged using the opinion, and whether lawmakers take up repeal in the next session. Gun-rights supporters welcomed the opinion on Friday; supporters of the post-Parkland law have not, in the reporting available so far, announced a legal challenge to the Attorney General's position. Awaaz Punjab will update this story as those responses come in.