Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he supports lowering the age requirement to buy a firearm in Florida from 21 to 18; he cited his experience in the military as his defense.
“In 2018, Florida tried to raise the minimum eligibility age to purchase a firearm after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which DeSantis opposed calling it ‘unconstitutional,'” Town Hall reports.
“Look, I was in Iraq. I was there with 18-year-old Marines, 18-year-old soldiers put out in the streets of Fallujah and Ramadi and told they had to risk their lives for this country,” DeSantis said. “Then they come back after doing that, and even though they were carrying a firearm the whole time, they’re told you cannot exercise your Second Amendment rights here as an adult and as a veteran?”
“I know it’s in the courts as well. I think, ultimately, it will be determined that those blanket prohibitions are not constitutional,” DeSantis continued. “If we’re going to say as a society that the age of adulthood is 21, then that would be one thing. But it’s not. I mean, you send people out when they’re 18; they can vote when they’re 18. And so it’s a constitutionally protected freedom; I don’t think there’s basis to say that you can just blanket exclude people arbitrarily.”
Watch the clip above.