TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 A recent court ruling that declared Florida’s open carry ban unconstitutional is prompting questions about how the law meshes with other long-standing restrictions \u2014 and whether the new ruling is poking gaps into the state’s existing gun restrictions.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
\u00a0At least one Florida lawmaker wants to clarify Florida’s laws concerning gun-free zones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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\u00a0The law specifically address only handguns and concealed weapons, but does not say anything about openly carrying long guns
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\u00a0Florida became an open carry state in September after a judge ruled the state’s ban on the practice unconstitutional<\/p>\n
Among other topics, lawmakers are discussing\u00a0how Florida\u2019s \u201cgun-free zone\u201d laws apply \u2014 or don\u2019t \u2014 to openly carried firearms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently, state law bans openly carrying “a handgun” and\/or “concealed weapon or concealed firearm” into\u00a0gun-free zones. But while that state law prohibits the open carry of handguns in gun-free zones, it but does not specifically ban openly carrying a long gun \u2014 like a hunting rifle, shotgun or AR-15-style weapon.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, a Democrat, said she worries that could create a loophole that would potentially allow people to carry long guns in areas where other weapons are banned.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The law) never mentioned long guns because we had an open carry ban in the state of Florida,\u201d Hunschofsky said. \u201cSo a long gun like an AR-15 is not considered a handgun, and you couldn\u2019t conceal it. It was never mentioned in that statute.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is proposing a measure that would broaden the language regulating “gun-free zones” to include all firearms, whether openly carried or concealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Republican House Speaker Designate Sam Garrison has said that state legislators will need to take a hard look at the state’s laws to see if something needs to change now that open carry is legal in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are about as strong a Second Amendment state as you’re ever going to see,\u201d said Garrison, a Fleming Island Republican. \u201cThat\u2019s never going to change. The question going forward is, what do we do in light of the court ruling? And we\u2019re trying to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some gun-rights groups, however, view the so-called loophole differently. Luis Valdes, of Gun Owners of America, argues the state should scale back gun-free zones, not expand them.<\/p>\n
\u201cGun-free zones don\u2019t work,\u201d Valdes said. \u201cThey\u2019ve never stopped any of the criminal acts that happened. Criminals don\u2019t care. They break the law \u2014 an imaginary line doesn\u2019t stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers thus far have not confirmed what \u2014 if any \u2014 action they’ll take to address the open carry of long guns in gun-free zones. The 2026 regular session begins in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 A recent court ruling that declared Florida’s open carry ban unconstitutional is prompting questions about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3140,2967,274,28,30,29,2203,2287,115,139,99,277,135,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-42193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-public-safety","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-jason-delgado","15":"tag-local-politics","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-orlando","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-public-safety","20":"tag-tampa","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}