Florida House set to discuss bill that would lower minimum age to purchase guns from 21 to 18 this week

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida House could move quickly to pass a controversial bill that would lower the minimum age to purchase rifles and other long guns from 21 to 18.

RELATED: Republicans in Florida’s Capitol restart push to lower the gun-buying age to 18

The House is scheduled Wednesday to take up the bill (HB 759), filed by Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Pensacola, and Majority Leader Tyler Sirois, R-Merritt Island.

The Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott increased the minimum age for long-gun purchases to 21 after the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.

But with the National Rifle Association and other opponents arguing the age restriction violates the Second Amendment, the House passed bills to repeal the law in 2023 and 2024.

The Senate did not take up those bills and has not made clear whether it will consider repealing the law this year.

Lawmakers fighting the repeal have pointed to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where 19-year-old shooter Nikolas Cruz used a semiautomatic rifle.