Open Carry Ruling Creates Confusion on Gun-Free Zones in Florida

The court ruling that says open carry is now legal in Florida is a huge win for gun rights in the Sunshine State. I’ve beaten up on the legislature down that way for not having already done thing, but now it’s a thing.

They can try to dial it back, but that’s a whole lot harder to do than to just ignore the issue and hope it goes away, as seemed to be their tactic in recent years.

However, there might be a smidge of a problem.

Florida Carry, one of the state’s leading gun rights organizations, notes that there might be a bit of confusion about gun-free zones in the wake of the ruling.

The appeals court ruling affected part of a law that set parameters for concealed-weapons licenses. That law says a concealed-weapons license “does not authorize any person to openly carry a handgun or carry a concealed weapon or concealed firearm into” a list of prohibited places, such as jails, bars, legislative committee meetings and police stations.

“Right now (after the appeals court ruling on open carry), in a number of places, the prohibited places don’t technically apply,” Sean Caranna, executive director of the gun rights group Florida Carry Inc., told The News Service of Florida on Friday. “There is going to be a brief period of time here where obviously the statutes have not caught up to the court rulings, and we’re advising that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and people should abide by the current set of places that are prohibited … when it comes to all forms of carry.”

Caranna said his group will work with legislators and other “stakeholders” to tweak the law during the legislative session that begins in January.

“Nobody is trying to say that we’re going to have a situation where people are allowed to carry into a jail. “Absolutely, there are places where a prohibition is appropriate, and there are going to be parameters around that,” he said.

It’s too early to say which spaces should be deemed off-limits for guns, Caranna said. Any changes would have to be in line with the “historical precedent based on the time of the ratification of the Second Amendment,” Caranna said, pointing to U.S. Supreme Court rulings establishing that gun rights restrictions must be in keeping with the nation’s “historical tradition.”

Caranna notes that it’s entirely possible the state wouldn’t be able to meet that historical tradition burden, just as they were unable to do so with regard to open carry.

However, a lot of gun rights advocates aren’t so accepting of gun-free zones in general.

Personally, I can accept a few limitations, such as in prisons where there are security reasons that have nothing to do with a distrust of you exercising your rights–even police can’t carry in there, after all–and my sense of property rights means people can tell you to leave if you’re carrying and you should have to do so. I can even live with a sign on the door having some legal standing–I don’t want to spend my money with companies that hate my rights anyway.

But beyond that? Not so much.

As such, I’m not exactly heartbroken about the end of gun-free zones in Florida. When I go to the 2A Freedom Fest in Summerville next year, I hope they haven’t “clarified” anything because I think I’m going to open carry in all of the places instead of just at the campground like I normally do.

If not, well, that’s just how it goes.

However, I think they’re going to find it a lot harder to recreate these off-limits places now, because it’s easy to pretend to be pro-gun when you’re just not voting for gun control. It’s kind of hard to vote for it and still make that argument. There are some limits people will likely accept, especially if Florida Carry is in the room, but you’re not going to get everything you want, either, unless you’re very selective about what you ask for.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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