Florida Attorney General says cops ought to cease arresting anybody brazenly carrying firearm | EUROtoday

Florida’s Republican legal professional normal has advised police and prosecutors to cease imposing the state’s decades-old ban on carrying weapons brazenly after an appeals court docket dominated it unconstitutional.

In a letter posted to social media on Monday, James Uthmeier stated that the ruling was binding on all trial courts and that his workplace would not defend such instances.

“As of last week, open carry is the law of the state,” he wrote on X.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has lengthy campaigned to overturn the ban, lent his backing to Uthmeier’s letter, saying: “This decision aligns state policy with my long-held position and with the vast majority of states throughout the union.

“Ultimately, the court docket accurately dominated that the textual content of the Second Amendment — ‘to maintain and bear arms’ — says what it means and means what it says.”

The ruling leaves California, Connecticut, and Illinois as the only states in the entire union that still ban open carry.

Democrats criticized the move, saying it would make Florida more dangerous and dissuade tourists from visiting.

“Historically, the Florida Sheriffs Association, many departments throughout the state, and leaders on either side of the aisle have agreed: open carry will make Floridians much less protected,” said Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried.

“The affect of this determination may have unfavourable long-term results on our communities and additional erode Floridians’ belief in each other.”

Uthmeier is a longtime ally of DeSantis, having previously served as his chief of staff and managed his failed presidential campaign in 2024.

The ruling came in response to a 2022 lawsuit filed by Pensacola gun rights advocate and independent political candidate Stan McDaniels, who was arrested for visibly carrying a handgun in a holster tucked into his pants while campaigning for a seat on the Escambia County Commission.

McDaniels argued that this arrest and the open carry ban that had been on Florida’s law books since 1987, violated the Second Amendment.

In fact, the ban was originally even older than that, having stood since the 19th century before being repealed for a few years in the 1980s.

Yet in a unanimous ruling, a panel of three Republican-appointed judges sided with McDaniels, arguing: “No historical tradition supports Florida’s open carry ban. To the contrary, history confirms that the right to bear arms in public necessarily includes the right to do so openly.”

McDaniels, who’s reportedly in jail for violating an injunction in a home violence case, issued a press release on X thanking all of the individuals who had helped him win the case, from his professional bono legal professional to his mom and sons.

“To all those who said I shouldn’t protest for Open Carry, thank you,” he wrote. “Without you I wouldn’t have realized the true strength of my convictions and the burdens involved while standing alone…

“Finally, I thank the individuals who put me within the place to battle for Florida purple flag and household custody legal guidelines. It is time for Florida to rethink, acknowledge, and legalize Fathers’ Rights…

“Please consider writing Governor Ron DeSantis to commute my sentence in Escambia County.”