Florida Open-Carry Gun Ban Struck Down by State Appeals Court

Florida can’t generally prohibit the open carrying of firearms in public, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday as it struck down a decades-old state law.

The First District Court of Appeals vacated the conviction of a man sentenced for violating a 1987 state law that prohibits openly carrying firearms, even if one is permitted to concealed carry. That law fails new standards laid down in the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen because there is no historical basis for regulating open carry, the court ruled.

History “confirms that the right to bear arms in public necessarily includes the right to do so openly,” Judge Stephanie W. Ray wrote for a unanimous panel. “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.”

While the state defended the conviction in court, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) issued a statement on social media praising the ruling,

“Our office fully supports the Court’s decision,” he said. “This is a big win for the Second Amendment rights of Floridians.”

The ruling ends Florida’s stance as an outlier on the issue, and leaves only California, Connecticut, and Illinois as the remaining jurisdictions with general bans on the open carry of firearms, Ray said.

While the court focused it’s analysis on the text, history and tradition framework that courts are grappling with in the years since Bruen, the issue of open carry has been tackled separately by the states for more than 175 years. Stretching back to the 1840s, state high courts have ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms could prohibit bans on openly-carrying firearms even while state concealed-carry prohibitions are upheld.

“The right to keep and bear arms did not extend to the carrying of weapons in secret, which was regarded as the practice of the cowardly and the disreputable and as incompatible with the legitimate exercise of the right of self-defense,” Ray said. “Open carry, by contrast, was understood to be the manner of bearing arms that gave full effect to the rights secured by the Second Amendment.”

Judges Lori S. Rowe and M. Kemmerly Thomas also sat on the panel.

Kingry & Friday represent the defendant.

The case is McDaniels v. Florida, Fla. Dist. Ct. App., 1st Dist., No. 1D2023-0533, 9/10/25.