Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued guidance on November 6, 2026, to law-enforcement agencies and prosecutors across the state stating that “all law-abiding residents of the State of Florida may now possess a short-barreled rifle (“SBR”) or short-barreled shotgun (“SBS”) without fear of prosecution.” The five-page memorandum, posted by his office on X, addresses a question that had hung over Florida gun owners for months: whether the state's own ban, in section 790.221 of the Florida Statutes, still exposes a person to a state felony charge for possessing an SBR or SBS that lacks National Firearms Act (NFA) approval, registration or a federal tax stamp. Uthmeier's answer is no.

Source: Alachua Chronicle

The memorandum's practical directions are specific. No NFA approval, NFA registration or federal tax stamp is needed for legal possession of these firearms in Florida, his office says. Mere possession of an SBR or SBS does not supply reasonable suspicion or probable cause for a search or seizure. And the Attorney General's office will not defend a conviction under section 790.221 on appeal when the sole basis for it is a missing NFA approval, registration or tax stamp. The guidance takes effect at once, and the same protection, Uthmeier wrote, extends to Florida-based federal firearms licensees — the dealers who sell and transfer these weapons.

Source: AmmoSight (summarizing the AG memorandum)

How Florida got here: a zeroed tax, a Texas ruling and an ATF retreat

The chain begins in Washington. In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress reduced the taxes associated with SBRs, SBSs and silencers to zero. That change undercut the legal foundation of the NFA's registration scheme, which had rested on Congress's taxing power. On August 5, 2026, Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held in Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF that the registration and prior-approval provisions could no longer be sustained under the taxing power once the tax was zero, and permanently enjoined their enforcement against the plaintiffs, their members and their customers. The federal government did not appeal the ruling.

On October 9, 2026, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed that it would no longer enforce the registration requirements for these items. That left a specifically Floridian problem: even with federal enforcement withdrawn, section 790.221 on its face makes it a second-degree felony to own or possess a short-barreled rifle, a short-barreled shotgun or a machine gun that works or can readily be made to work. State officers and prosecutors needed to know whether the state charge survived on its own.

The state-law question Uthmeier answered

Uthmeier's memorandum answers it through the statute's own exception. Section 790.221 excepts firearms “which are lawfully owned and possessed under provisions of federal law.” Uthmeier wrote that the “best reading” of that language is that state law “does not independently criminalize possession of firearms if those firearms may lawfully be owned and possessed under federal law.” He concluded: “The upshot of all these developments is this: every law-abiding Floridian may lawfully own and possess SBRs and SBSs under federal law. And the same protection extends to Florida-based federal firearms licensees.” In a public statement, he added: “This office will always defend the Second Amendment rights of peaceable citizens.”

Source: News2A

Florida did not arrive at the question all at once. State Attorney Brian Kramer of the Eighth Judicial Circuit put the issue on paper first, in an October 11 letter to police chiefs, sheriffs and command staff in his six counties — Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Gilchrist, Levy and Union — writing that Florida law does not independently require an ATF Form 1, Form 4, tax stamp or registration in the federal registry for lawful possession. Gun Owners of America had formally asked Uthmeier on August 25 to clarify section 790.221 statewide. The November 6 memorandum now extends Kramer's circuit-level reading to the whole state.

Limits written into the memo itself

The guidance is expressly conditional. It holds, in Uthmeier's formulation, “so long as no taxes are imposed on SBRs and SBSs.” If Congress restores a tax, or a higher court disturbs the August 2026 Texas injunction — a party-specific judgment that the Justice Department chose not to appeal — the state's position would have to be revisited. The ATF's October position is likewise enforcement discretion, not a statutory repeal: it can be withdrawn, and other states have answered the same state-law question differently, which is why the Florida memo matters only inside Florida's borders.

For Florida's roughly 23 million residents, the immediate effect is practical rather than theoretical. An SBR or SBS owner stopped by police no longer faces a state felony theory built solely on missing federal paperwork; officers are told possession alone is not grounds to search or seize; prosecutors are told the charge, on that sole basis, will not be defended on appeal; and licensed dealers are told the protection extends to them. For anyone who owns, sells or transports these firearms across state lines, the memo changes nothing outside Florida — the document they carry across a state border is still federal law and the law of the state they enter.

What happens next will be decided in three places. In Florida agencies and courtrooms, officers and prosecutors are expected to apply the guidance immediately, and any pending section 790.221 case built solely on missing NFA paperwork will test the Attorney General's promise not to defend such a conviction on appeal. In Washington, a congressional decision to restore the tax would collapse the premise the memo stands on. And in the federal courts, any later challenge to the Texas judgment or to the ATF's non-enforcement policy would do the same. Until one of those moves, the November 6 memorandum is the operative rule for SBR and SBS possession in Florida.