Open Carry Ban Ruled Unconstitutional

Florida’s long-standing prohibition on openly carrying firearms has been struck down as unconstitutional. In a published opinion issued September 10, 2025, the First District Court of Appeal held that Florida Statutes § 790.053 cannot be reconciled with the Second Amendment and therefore “is declared unconstitutional,” vacating Stanley Victor McDaniels’s conviction and remanding the case. The decision frames open carry as conduct protected by the Second Amendment’s “plain text” and faults the State for failing to show any historical tradition that would justify a ban. 

The Case Behind the Headline

The appeal arose from a Pensacola incident on July 4, 2022, when McDaniels stood at an intersection with a holstered handgun visible, a copy of the Constitution in hand, and a camera recording. He cooperated with police, presented a valid concealed carry license, and later surrendered on an open-carry charge. After the trial court upheld the statute but certified a constitutional question of “great public importance,” the First DCA took the case and answered plainly: Florida’s open carry ban violates the Second Amendment.

Crucially, the appellate court applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen test – text, history, and tradition – rather than the “means-end” balancing the Florida Supreme Court used in Norman v. State (2017) to uphold the ban. The First DCA emphasized that, under the Supremacy Clause, it is bound by Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, which reject interest-balancing and require the government to identify a “well-established and representative historical analogue” if it seeks to restrict conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s text. 

Florida as a National Outlier

The court called Florida “an outlier,” grouping it with only a handful of states – California, Connecticut, and Illinois – that generally prohibited open carry. That national context mattered: when the historical record shows widespread acceptance of open carry (and, in many jurisdictions, suspicion of concealed carry), a blanket ban looks like the exception, not the rule. 

The First DCA’s core holding is straightforward: “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 bore a “heavy burden” to produce historically analogous regulations—burden it did not meet. The opinion distinguishes between regulating how people carry and extinguishing an entire mode of carry: history permits the former within limits, but not the latter. 

Media Confirmations and On-the-Ground Perspective

Local news confirmed the seismic shift. WESH 2 News reporter Tony Atkins summarized the decision as a three-judge panel striking down the ban in a case out of Escambia County – then put a microphone in front of both sides. Former state lawmaker and current Lake County commissioner Anthony Sabatini praised the ruling as “legally correct,” rooted in “the history of the text of the Second Amendment,” and predicted no appeal from the Attorney General. State Senator Carlos G. Smith countered that, in a state with permitless carry, striking the open-carry ban risks “unrestricted carry,” with people “visibly pack[ing] loaded guns almost anywhere in public.” 

The Attorney General’s Posture

WESH 2 News also reported that Attorney General James Uthmeier called the decision a “big win for the Second Amendment” and, notably, said he doesn’t plan to appeal – signaling he could advise law enforcement not to enforce the struck statute pending legislative repeal. That posture, if it holds, would widen the ruling’s practical effect beyond the First DCA’s geographic footprint. 

What Gun Owners Should Know Right Now

Even with open carry recognized, rules remain. Florida gun instructor Chris Louissaint told WESH 2 that open carry means holstered, plainly visible – not a firearm carried in hand. He also reminded owners that federal and state “sensitive places” prohibitions still apply: schools, federal buildings, and other restricted venues remain off-limits. In other words, the ruling restores a mode of carry, not a license to ignore existing restricted-place laws or brandishing statutes.

Advocacy Groups Declare Victory

Gun-rights organizations quickly amplified the news. The Firearms Policy Coalition posted that “a Florida appeals court ruled today that the state’s open carry ban violates the Second Amendment,” framing it as a clean constitutional win. Florida Gun Rights called it a “massive victory for gun rights,” celebrating the ruling’s plain-language embrace of open carry as a protected right. And the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) cheered, “Big news for Florida! Hopefully, this will be the last year Floridians live under the illogical and unconstitutional open carry ban.” 

The YouTube Megaphone and Grassroots Energy

On YouTube, Braden Langley of Langley Outdoors Academy characterized the moment as a “massive victory,” connecting the Florida decision to what he sees as a broader run of post-Bruen wins “stacking, stacking, stacking.” He spotlighted language from the opinion – especially the court’s observation that, historically, open carry was “the lawful and preferred mode of bearing arms” – as evidence that attempts to prohibit open carry are running into the brick wall of originalist jurisprudence. While Langley’s tone is clearly advocacy-oriented, his read of the opinion’s themes aligns with the court’s text-and-history emphasis. 

The Legal Mechanics (and My Take)

A district court of appeal’s published decision is binding on trial courts within its district and highly persuasive elsewhere in Florida. If the Attorney General declines to appeal and instructs agencies to align with the ruling, the practical effect becomes statewide very quickly. My view: this decision was close to inevitable after Bruen. Florida’s earlier Norman ruling survived on interest-balancing deference; Bruen removes that crutch. Once a court applies the same originalist yardstick that protected public carry in Bruen, a categorical open-carry ban – especially in a state that already allows concealed carry – struggles to find a historical analogue.

What Still Can Be Regulated

The First DCA took pains to say open carry isn’t “absolute or immune from reasonable regulation.” Sensitive places, prohibitions for felons and the mentally ill, and laws against brandishing or terrorizing carry remain on solid ground. Think of this ruling as restoring an option (open carry) while leaving intact restrictions that history supports. My advice-colored commentary: if Florida lawmakers respond, the constitutional path runs through narrowly tailored, historically grounded regulations – not blanket prohibitions.

The Historical Through-Line the Court Embraced

One striking element in the opinion is its candid parsing of 19th-century cases. Courts in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Louisiana routinely upheld bans on concealed carry while treating open carry as the constitutionally significant default—precisely the inverse of many modern assumptions. The First DCA draws on that record to show that “blurring” the distinction between open and concealed carry misreads history. Whether you agree with the policy outcome or not, the historical argument is tightly constructed. 

Public Safety, Policy, and Perception

Critics like Sen. Smith warn that visible firearms – layered onto permitless concealed carry – could heighten risk and public anxiety. That’s a real policy concern, and it’s one the Bruen framework consciously removes from judicial balancing. The upshot: if Floridians want to cabin open carry for safety reasons, those limits must be crafted to mirror historical practices (e.g., sensitive-place carve-outs, rules focused on terrorizing conduct), not sweeping bans. That’s a harder legislative needle to thread, but it’s the constitutional lane now available. 

The Practical Checklist for Floridians

If you plan to open carry once implementation details are clear: use a proper holster; ensure the firearm is plainly visible; study restricted locations under state and federal law; and understand that “printing” and “brief display” rules will likely be reinterpreted in light of the ban’s demise. And keep an eye on agency guidance – if the Attorney General formalizes his reported intent not to appeal, he may also issue direction on non-enforcement pending statutory cleanup. 

A Moment That Echoes Beyond Florida

Florida was one of the last large states clinging to a general open-carry prohibition. With this opinion, the legal winds are even clearer for jurisdictions like California, Illinois, and Connecticut, which will have to defend their rules under the same Bruen rubric. If appellate conflicts emerge, the U.S. Supreme Court could be drawn back in to clarify the scope of “reasonable regulation” versus impermissible bans. For now, Florida’s ruling is a map: text first, history second, no interest-balancing detours.

From Courtroom to Culture

From the sober language of the First DCA to the exuberant X posts and YouTube victory laps, this decision lands in both law and culture. The Firearms Policy Coalition underscored the legal headline; Florida Gun Rights and NAGR mobilized their audiences with celebratory framing; WESH 2 News gave viewers practical and opposing voices; and Braden Langley stitched it into a wider post-Bruen narrative. My take: regardless of politics, the opinion is a meticulously Bruen-compliant blueprint. If opponents of open carry want to change outcomes, the battlefield now is legislative craft and public persuasion, not a return to the balancing tests the Supreme Court has already rejected.