On Wednesday, September 10, a Florida appeals court struck down the state’s ban on open carry of firearms for self-defense, marking a watershed moment repudiating a prohibition that has been largely encouraged by Republicans.
Florida is unlikely to appeal this outcome, based on this statement from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who wrote, “Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals just ruled that Florida’s open carry ban is no longer constitutionally enforceable statewide. Our office fully supports the Court’s decision. This is a big win for the Second Amendment rights of Floridians. As we’ve all witnessed over the last few days, our God-given right to self-defense is indispensable.”
Florida Gun Rights Executive Director, Logan Edge, praised the court’s decision striking down Florida’s liberal open carry ban. “We should not forget cowards that hid in Tallahassee and the legislature that refused to file this bill.”
Judges Ray, Rowe, and M.K. Thomas concurred in issuing the 20-page opinion in a case known as McDaniels v. Florida, issued from the First District Court of Appeals for the State of Florida.
The court’s opening statement couldn’t be more encouraging in its understanding of and support of civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution:
Florida law generally makes it a crime for an ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizen to carry a firearm openly in public. Stanley Victor McDaniels was convicted under that law, and he now appeals. He contends that this open carry ban is incompatible with the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms. Guided by the Constitution’s text and this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, we agree. We therefore declare the law unconstitutional, vacate McDaniels’s conviction, and reverse his sentence.
This case was no accident, and every citizen in Florida owes their gratitude to the deliberate actions of plaintiff, Stanley Victor McDaniels. The court neatly summarized how it came to be:
On the Fourth of July 2022, McDaniels stood at a major intersection in downtown Pensacola. He held a copy of the United States Constitution in one hand and was waving at vehicles that drove by with his other hand. He also had a loaded handgun tucked inside his pants using an inside-the-waistband holster. The holstered firearm was visible to anyone who passed by, but McDaniels was not threatening anyone. He had also set up a camera on a tripod to record his activity. When law enforcement officers arrived at the scene several hours later, McDaniels was cooperative. He explained that he wanted to take this case to the supreme court.
Encouragingly, the court also recognized in its decision that there can be no application of interest balancing in deciding Second Amendment issues, writing, “As will be explained below, the shift from the deferential, means-end analysis employed in Norman to Bruen‘s text-history-tradition framework is dispositive for present purposes.”
The court applies the Bruen test, throws out the state’s irrelevant analogues and concludes, “No historical tradition supports Florida’s Open Carry Ban.”
Although Florida passed permitless carry in April of 2023, the law expressly prohibited open carry, and the state has remained a hotbed of anti-Second Amendment activity. For example, Florida mandates a three-day waiting period to take possession of a firearm after a sale (currently being challenged), and bans gun ownership for adults under 21 years of age (also being challenged).
“As a member of the Florida House of Representatives, I fought for four years in Tallahassee for Open Carry—only to see my gun bills blocked by fake Republicans—thank you to Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal for standing up for liberty while the Legislature failed,” said Anthony Sabatini, Lake County Commissioner, and former State Representative, in a statement on X.
