Florida Appeals Court Strikes Down Open Carry Ban

A Florida appeals court on Wednesday ruled that the state's ban on open-carry of firearms is unconstitutional according to the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on the 2nd Amendment.

The court ruled in a case brought by Stanley Victor McDaniels, who in 2022 was convicted of openly carrying a gun on the Fourth of July in Pensacola, Florida. The ruling on Wednesday comes about 10 years after the Florida Supreme Court upheld the ban as constitutional.

In a unanimous decision by the three-judge panel, the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that a 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that focused on the "historical tradition" of firearms regulation provides new precedent for their decision.

"No historical tradition supports Florida's open carry ban," reads the opinion issued on Wednesday. "To the contrary, history confirms that the right to bear arms in public necessarily includes the right to do so openly. That is not to say that open carry is absolute or immune from reasonable regulation. But what the state may not do is extinguish the right altogether for ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens."

It adds, "Because the Second Amendment's plain text encompasses the open carrying of firearms in public, that conduct is presumptively protected by the Constitution. The state therefore bears the heavy burden of establishing a relevant historical tradition of firearms regulation that justifies its prohibition. The state has not met that burden. It is not enough to rely on a generalized tradition of firearms regulation, for at that level of abstraction almost any law could be sustained."

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated the ruling in a statement on social media.

"This decision aligns state policy with my long-held position and with the vast majority of states throughout the union," DeSantis wrote. "Ultimately, the court correctly ruled that the text of the Second Amendment — to 'keep and bear arms' — says what it means and means what it says."

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