The Supreme Court ruled, in its Bruen decision, that some places are sensitive enough to warrant the prohibition of firearms. These should be limited, as we saw in Wolford, but gun-free zones are currently permissible. The problem is that just because you can prohibit guns in some places, it doesn’t mean you should.
For the county government in Leon County, Florida, though, just because you can means you absolutely ought to, especially when you think you’ve found some massive loophole.
Which no one has taken advantage of, so far as reported.
Florida law is clear about handguns: they don’t belong inside courthouses, police stations or government meetings. But when it comes to rifles and shotguns, the law goes silent — and Leon County says that silence has opened a gap state lawmakers need to close.
The county formally adopted the request Tuesday during its 2027 State and Federal Legislative Priorities Workshop, asking the Florida Legislature to extend the same firearm restrictions that apply to handguns in “sensitive government and community spaces” to all firearms, including openly carried rifles and shotguns.
At the center of the issue is Florida Statute 790.06, which prohibits people from openly carrying a handgun or carrying a concealed weapon into courthouses, police stations, prisons and meetings of legislative governing bodies. According to the county’s own legislative documents, the statute “does not expressly address the open carrying of other types of firearms, such as rifles, shotguns, or AR-15s into places where handguns remain prohibited.”
The gap traces back to a September 2025 ruling from Florida’s First District Court of Appeal, which struck down the state’s ban on openly carrying firearms as unconstitutional. That ruling was aimed at handguns, but county officials say it exposed a separate, older problem buried in a different part of Florida law — one that was written with only pistols and handguns in mind.
Again, no one has apparently taken advantage of this loophole, at least in any malicious sense. In fact, I bet most people in Leon County were unaware that, under the law, they can carry a rifle or shotgun into the county courthouse if they so desire. Now they know, of course, because people have decided this needs to be a thing, which means news reports, and now everyone with some nefarious intention in their hearts knows a good place to bring a long gun if they so desire.
*slow clap*
Freaking brilliant.
Someone this report only calls “Wright” argues that this isn’t about infringing on rights, but giving his officers — whoever the heck they might be, because the local TV reporters did a bang-up job on identifying Mr. Wright — a clear standard.
I’m sorry, is there some ambiguity in “handguns are no, anything else is yes” that I’m missing? A clear standard is necessary when there are nuances that have to be considered. The difference between a handgun and a long gun is pretty easy to spot most of the time. The only exception is when you get into pistol braces, but that’s only because they look like a stock.
It’s not a tricky standard, even so.
This seems to be addressing a problem that simply doesn’t exist, and those are the worst kinds of gun control proposals.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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