Florida lifts open carry ban: Here are places where you still can't carry guns

Florida Statute 790.06 lays out a list of various establishments where Floridians cannot hold guns, including under open carry.

Starting Friday, Sept. 26, open carry will become the official gun law in the state of Florida, after a panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that a longstanding ban was unconstitutional.

Despite the ban not being lifted for another eight days, Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a letter directing state prosecutors and law enforcement to stop enforcing the longstanding open carry ban.

Multiple agencies, have said they will follow the new guidance and resist enforcing the current open carry ban in place.

Although open carry is now considered “the law of the state,” there are still multiple places where bringing a gun is strictly prohibited.

Where can I not bring a gun in Florida?

Florida Statute 790.06 lays out a list of various establishments where Floridians cannot hold guns, including under open carry.

Those locations include:

·  Any "place of nuisance" as listed in Statute 823.05

·  Police, sheriff or highway patrol stations

·  Detention facilities, prisons or jails

·  Courthouses

·  Courtrooms, with the exception of judges being allowed to carry or allowing someone in the room to carry

·  Polling places

·  Government offices and places of meeting

·  School, college or professional athletic events not related to firearms

·  Elementary or secondary school facilities or administration buildings

·  Career centers

·  Any establishment dispensing alcohol beverages

·  Passenger terminals and sterile areas of any airport

·  Any place where the carrying of firearms is prohibited by federal law

Appeals court finds open carry ban unconstitutional

The appeals-court opinion came in a challenge filed by Stanley Victor McDaniels, who was convicted of openly carrying a gun on the Fourth of July in 2022 in Pensacola.

Pointing to U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Second Amendment cases, a three-judge panel of the Tallahassee-based appeals court said the ban is incompatible with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

“No historical tradition supports Florida’s open carry ban,” Judge Stephanie Ray wrote in a 20-page opinion joined by Judges Lori Rowe and M. Kemmerly Thomas. “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.”

The Florida Supreme Court in 2015 upheld the constitutionality of the open-carry ban. But in Wednesday’s opinion, Ray said a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen governs the issue.

In his guidance, Uthmeier added that the court ruling doesn’t affect prohibitions on having guns in places such as police stations, courthouses, polling places, government meetings and schools.

Democrats criticized the court opinion, with state Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, on Thursday calling it “tone deaf given the state of violence in this country.”

“Florida’s current laws already robustly protect Second Amendment rights, even to the point of being a Stand Your Ground state. This ruling goes against the common-sense protections that keep our communities safe,” Jones wrote.