We Can Achieve This In All Our States - #2A
How Florida’s gun community legalized open carry without using lawmakers
How Florida’s gun community legalized open carry without using lawmakers
The open carry of any commonly used firearm—rifles, shotguns or handguns—is now 100% legal in Florida.
Only California, Connecticut and Illinois still bar their citizens from openly carrying arms.
In a letter sent Monday morning, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier warned all state prosecutors and every Florida law enforcement agency about McDaniels v. State, in which the First District Court of Appeal struck down Florida’s ban on the open carry of arms.
“Because no other appellate court has considered the constitutionality of Section 790.053 under Bruen and Rahimi, the First District’s decision is binding on all Florida’s trial courts. Effectively, the McDaniels decision is now the law of the State,” Uthmeier wrote. “Because no Florida court will any longer be empowered to convict a defendant for violating Section 790.053(1), prudence counsels that prosecutors and law enforcement personnel should likewise refrain from arresting or prosecuting law-abiding citizens carrying a firearm in a manner that is visible to others.”
Floridians and visitors who have long sought to openly carry a firearm have two men to thank, defense attorney Eric Friday, who also serves as general counsel for Florida Carry, Inc., and his former client, Stanley Victor McDaniels.
On the Fourth of July 2022, McDaniels armed himself with a loaded handgun which was visible in his pants, tucked in an inside-the-waistband holster, and a copy of the United States Constitution, which he carried in his non-shooting hand. He chose a spot in downtown Pensacola, Florida and set up a camera on a tripod to record…