Under Florida law, convicted felons are banned from possessing firearms, but Attorney General James Uthmeier is now contending that the law is unconstitutional when it relates to convicted felons who are considered “nondangerous” and have not committed a violent crime.
That opinion — never previously offered by a Florida attorney general — is being lavishly praised by Second Amendment advocates.
“We at Florida Gun Rights completely agree with Attorney General Uthmeier’s decision,” said Logan Edge, executive director Florida Gun Rights. “The founders never envisioned citizens losing their right to self-defense for life over nonviolent crimes.”
Uthmeier issued the opinion to the Florida First District Court of Appeal last month regarding the case of Christopher Morgan, originally convicted in Pennsylvania in 2007 of carrying a firearm without a state license, a third-degree felony in that state.
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Flash forward to September 2022, when Morgan got stopped by a Tallahassee police officer for appearing to drive above the speed limit. After he was pulled over, he informed the officer that he had a pistol in the central console of his car, and volunteered that he had been convicted of the Pennsylvania felony, which the officer was able to confirm. The officer found an unloaded Glock 19 with two magazines. Morgan was arrested for possessing the firearm.
Before his trial, Morgan’s attorneys made a motion alleging that Florida’s statute banning felons from possessing a firearm is unconstitutional. That motion was denied. Ultimately, Morgan’s attorneys negotiated a plea agreement with the state whereby Morgan pleaded no contest but appealed his conviction. He was sentenced to two days in jail with time already served.
On Sept. 30, 2025, in the First District Court of Appeal, Uthmeier’s office opposed Morgan’s appeal, writing in a brief that FS 790.23(1)(e) “is not unconstitutional as applied to Morgan or any other felon.”
His office went on to write that given that “Morgan is a convicted felon, he is not a ‘law-abiding’ citizen.”
Reversal
Then something changed.
In a subsequent brief filed on Feb. 13 of this year, the attorney general wrote that upon “studied reflection, the Attorney General has concluded that the conviction does indeed infringe Morgan’s right, as a nondangerous felon, to keep and bear arms. The State must therefore confess error and urge this Court to reverse.”
He later wrote: “Properly understood, the Second Amendment permits the government to dispossess felons whose convictions indicate that the felon is dangerous, but not merely all felons as a categorical matter.”
Uthmeier is due to file a supplemental brief in the case by the middle of this week. He promised the First DCA that supplemental brief will “discuss the lack of historical evidence supporting the dispossession of all felons, as distinct from the strong historical evidence supporting the disposition of dangerous felons.”
“That history would assist the Court in resolving this important issue,” he added.
The move has energized Second Amendment advocates.
“His memorandum shows a lot of intellectual honesty that we’ve missed from a lot of other attorneys general, because he recognizes that his first and foremost duty is to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Florida, then to follow the laws of the Legislature,” said Eric Friday, general counsel for Florida Carry, a gun rights advocacy group. “I think the attorney general has some role in saying when a law the Legislature passes is unconstitutional, he’s not going to defend it.”
This is not the first time Uthmeier has spoken out against Florida law when it comes to firearms regulations. In September, he effectively declared that Florida’s ban on open carry was no longer state law, days after the state’s First District ruled that the 1987 law banning open carry was unconstitutional. The Legislature opted not to clarify that change into state law during the just concluded regular 60-day legislative session.
It should be noted that Florida law does allow felons who have completed all terms of their sentence to apply to get their right to regain their gun rights back, but that process only begins after a waiting period of at least eight years from the time of the completion of their sentence. They can then apply for a restoration of their firearms through the Florida Commission on Offender Review that ultimately is decided upon by the Florida Office of Executive Clemency. The power to grant clemency is vested in the governor with the agreement of two Cabinet members.
Attorneys for felons hoping to get their Second Amendment rights restored say it often takes much, much longer than eight years for their cases to ever reach that level.
“Our clemency program is so broken that I know people who have waited their eight years, and they’ve been waiting another decade, for action on their clemency application,” Friday said.
In 2021, former Gainesville Republican Sen. Keith Perry filed legislation to reinstate the civil and firearm rights of felons who have completed all parts of their sentence as long as they were not convicted of a violent crime. It died in committee.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last year that it was working on a plan to allow certain individuals with felony convictions and other federal firearm prohibitions to petition for the restoration of their gun rights. A month ago, that resulted in published a list of 22 names in the Federal Register who had their federal gun rights restored following decades-old felony convictions.
The Phoenix reached out to several gun safety groups for comment, but none immediately responded.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
