Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is taking another major step in support of gun rights, declaring that Florida’s firearm waiting period laws are unconstitutional and indicating that state officials should no longer enforce them.
The move follows a series of recent actions by Uthmeier challenging firearm restrictions he believes conflict with the Second Amendment. Earlier this year, he argued that some firearm possession bans affecting nonviolent felons could not survive constitutional scrutiny, and in 2025 he directed law enforcement agencies not to enforce Florida’s longstanding open-carry ban after a state appeals court struck it down.
Bearing Arms reported additional details on the latest decision:
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.
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.”
State attorney drops waiting period prosecutions
According to WCJB, Kramer informed county officials that his office would no longer enforce violations of firearm waiting-period laws, including Alachua County’s five-day waiting-period ordinance.
Kramer cited a recent federal court ruling that found governments cannot impose waiting periods extending beyond the time reasonably necessary to complete a background check. The case reportedly involved a firearm purchaser who challenged the constitutionality of the delay after buying a shotgun from a North Florida gun dealer.
Conflict with Florida law and constitution
Florida law currently imposes a mandatory waiting period between the purchase and delivery of firearms sold by licensed dealers. State statutes require a three-day waiting period, excluding weekends and holidays, or until a background check is completed, whichever takes longer.
The issue is complicated by the fact that Florida’s Constitution also contains a voter-approved provision requiring a three-day waiting period for handgun purchases, adopted in 1990.
That means even if prosecutors decline to pursue violations, the waiting period remains written into both Florida law and the state constitution unless repealed by lawmakers, struck down by the courts, or removed through a constitutional amendment process.
Part of a broader Second Amendment push
Uthmeier has increasingly aligned Florida’s legal positions with recent Supreme Court Second Amendment rulings. His office previously declined to defend Florida’s open-carry prohibition after an appeals court found the ban inconsistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The attorney general subsequently advised law enforcement agencies statewide not to arrest or prosecute otherwise law-abiding citizens for openly carrying firearms.
The waiting-period dispute appears likely to become the next major battleground in Florida’s ongoing debate over gun rights, with supporters arguing that mandatory delays burden lawful firearm purchases while opponents contend they serve as a public-safety measure. For now, however, at least some Florida prosecutors are signaling they will not pursue cases based on waiting-period violations.
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