When I was 19, I enlisted in the Navy. A few weeks later, I’m in Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, and someone hands me a 1911. It’s chambered in .22, but it’s still a 1911, and not the M9 I expected. Still, the training evolution is simple. We take aim at a target following a safety briefing and commence firing.
Again, I’m 19-years-old, and the United States government just handed me a handgun.
That’s something that I couldn’t lawfully purchase at the time. It’s something that other 19-year-olds in many states can’t even carry, even if someone gives them one.
I could, should my duty have called for it, but my peers back home were often denied the opportunity.
That’s still the case, all these *mumblty* years later.
And in a state like Florida, it’s worse, because people who are 19 can’t even buy a long gun anymore. Meanwhile, Wyoming is making the kinds of positive moves that Florida should have tripped over itself to do years ago.
An 18-year-old from Wyoming can “go and fight and die for their country.” Yet they can’t get a concealed carry permit, at least not without navigating extra hurdles.
Pointing to this contrast as a justification, Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, a Wheatland Republican, urged his colleagues Tuesday in the House to change the law.
House Bill 96, “Carrying of concealed weapons-age requirement,” — his proposal to lower the legal age for acquiring a concealed carry permit from 21 to 18 — subsequently sailed through introduction in a 57-4 vote. Haroldson’s three other gun bills also easily cleared the two-thirds approval threshold required to introduce legislation during budget years, hinting at yet another session that could further expand Second Amendment rights in Wyoming.
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The House also introduced in a 55-6 vote Haroldson’s House Bill 95, which would allow people authorized to carry concealed weapons without a permit to do so on any public college or university campus. During that vote, Wyoming Gun Owners Director Aaron Dorr sat in the House gallery watching lawmakers. (WyoFile asked to speak with Dorr about this year’s gun bills. He said in a text that “it’s a little too early to get into the details of WYGO’s program for 2026.”)
Haroldson brought another bill that adds teeth to Wyoming’s “Prohibit Red Flag Gun Seizure Act.” Gordon signed the bill into law in 2024, making Wyoming among the first states in the nation to ban red flag gun laws, with some exceptions. Typically, red flag gun laws enable police and sometimes others to ask a judge to temporarily remove someone’s access to guns if they are believed to be a risk to themselves or others.
Haroldson’s House Bill 98 would tack on a misdemeanor to that law, punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and/or a year in prison if it is violated. The bill sailed across the introductory hurdle in a 55-6 vote on Tuesday. Lawmakers also pushed along Haroldson’s House Bill 97, which would bar the disclosure or use of information related to firearms and ammunition sales under certain circumstances. Midwest Republican Rep. Bill Allemand sponsored this bill last year, but it failed on third reading in the Senate.
The fact that these are coming up in a budget year, when it’s ostensibly incredibly difficult to get these kinds of bills to advance, is a very good thing.
While the university campus carry bill won’t help a lot of students–it only applies to those covered under the constitutional carry law, which is 21 and up–it’ll help others.
And, as more lawful adults under 21 can carry in general, it makes it more trouble that it’s worth for criminals to target this age group in general. That’s a huge win.
However, in Florida, they’re still fighting tooth and nail to simply repeal a law that makes it so these same legal adults can’t buy a long gun. This was a knee-jerk reaction to the Parkland shooting, and too many state lawmakers somehow feel that admitting they were wrong then is some kind of egregious sin that would result in public stoning or flogging.
They can’t get their crap together and recognize that these adults under 21 are still adults. They vote, they serve their country, and like me back in the day, they get handed weapons by Uncle Sam that they’re prohibited from owning at all by their home states in some cases. It’s bad enough when you’re talking about something legally a machine gun, but even the AR-15–nothing but a lookalike–is off the table, as is a simple deer hunting rifle or a shotgun.
Florida needs to get its rear in gear.
Wyoming is putting them to shame.
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