Gun advocates go to federal court to challenge a Florida law banning open carry

Two advocacy groups have gone to the courts in hopes to overturn Florida's ban on the open carry of firearms, saying they are done waiting for the Ron DeSantis administration to move on the issue.

Concretely, the Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation, along with a private resident, filed a lawsuit before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, claiming that the ban violates the Second and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

"This blatant infringement of the Second Amendment right to 'bear arms' runs counter to this nation's historical tradition and would have criminalized the very colonists who openly carried their muskets and mustered on the greens at Lexington and Concord to right for their independence," reads a passage of the 40-page suit.

Florida already allows residents to legally carry concealed weapons without needing a permit through the state. This is a result of a law passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2023, which is known as constitutional carry or permit less carry.

But gun advocates are saying that the measure doesn't go far enough and that it needs to pass an "open carry" provision too, even though the Florida Supreme Court upheld an open-carry ban in 2017. Hillsborough County Republican Mike Beltran effectively filed a bill in that direction. It would also allow lawmakers to carry concealed guns to legislative meetings and in the state Capitol building.

However, the bill died without any committee hearings following a lack of enthusiasm from House Speaker Paul Renner or Senate President Kathleen Passidomo.

"You have a Republican House Speaker state that he and his Republican colleagues don't have an 'appetite' to debate and vote on open carry. You have a Republican Senate President state that repealing the under-21 purchase ban is a 'non-starter.' Yet both have the nerve to campaign that they're pro-gun," said in February Luis Valdes, Florida state director of Gun Owners of America, according to the Florida Phoenix.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is making similar arguments in challenging a 2018 state law preventing people under the age of 21 from buying long weapons. The measure was approved by then-governor Rick Scott after the mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.