Florida Carry legal victory makes way for constitutional challenge to Open Carry Ban

[sudden valley gunner]

Florida is pro gun YANKEE!

Like most yankees they confuse guns for their purpose with second amendment. This is why OC frightens the Florida legislature and the courts. New Jersey yankees move to Fl to retire they bring their NJ money, and attitudes. Over the years they have done a good job through the media of convincing the rest of the residents that blood will run in the streets if OC is legal.

Yankees like to own guns, on their terms, it has always been that way. They could care less about the constitution, as long as they can move to Floriida buy a pink shirt and off white sport coat and play Sonny Crocket, or Tubbs. I saw it when I lived there. The TV show helped shape the gun image in Florida.

This is why it is so important we make people understand that CC by permit is NOT 2A. The courts have wrongly ruled that 2A is about self defense, it is not, and never should have been perverted. It is about having the tools to keep governments from controlling the people. Which is exactly where we have ended up. The conceal carry only fools have brought this on us. The NRA has brought this on us.

Self defense is a right, just not a 2A right, it is covered by those rights not enumerated. It is important that people interpret, and read the constitution as it was written. As much as the NRA has tried, and successfully to separate the 2A into two separate phrases they are tied together, and reveal the purpose for the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It is not about hunting, it is not about self defense, it is not about collecting. It's sole purpose was to protect the people from our own government as well as those governments outside our border. Sorry, but if (general) you cannot grasp that YOU are part of the problem.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Want your conceal carry self defense rights argue them using "Roe V Wade". The ruling paved the way for the right to decide for yourself your security, and the privacy to do so. The problem is so called conservatives hate pro choice so much they are not willing to accept the ruling that will never go away. I am not wild about abortion as birth control, but the ruling supports conceal carry as a right. The second does not. Separate the two CC and OC, and we have a chance of having both unfettered.

I am not against CC as right, just argue it with the right amendment. Let OC stand on it's own and for the purpose it was intended. Once OC is gained without government meddling politicians will gladly make CC available because OC scares them more. And it should, it is the purpose of the second amendment.

Those black panthers would have never been able to frighten the CA legislature if they hid their guns in their coats. They failed that battle but they did not lose, they did pave the way for an attitude that the constitution means what it says it means. The purpose of the second IS to intimidate the government, and keep them in check.

+1000 Nice post. Especially the last part. Some do not seem to get that.

 

[77zach]

From Fl Carry's email on the matter:

"Don’t have enough money to pay for your right? Tough, you can’t have it unless you pay up.

Get arrested while legally carrying? Tough, the Florida Concealed Carry License serves as merely a defense to the crime of carrying any type of firearm. Every time you carry you are breaking the law, tell it to the judge that you have the affirmative defense of a license and that it was only a concealed handgun.

Have a stalker and need to exercise your right now? Tough, you have to wait up to 90 days. Unless there is an administrative issue with your fingerprints or background check, in that case the timeline for issuance is suspended almost indefinitely.

Have any type of firearm other than a handgun? Tough, the right to bear arms only applies to handguns in Florida."

How does any of this apply to Mr Norman? He has a CWFL. You'd have to have someone convicted of carrying concealed without a permit and show that he could have had one but could get one for some other reason. Remember, the judges read the Constitution as saying the "right to keep and bear arms shall not be Destroyed". For such a person, the right to carry would be destroyed.

 

[BB62]

I challenge you to do better than we have.

+1,000

Whiners whine, but do nothing, and fail to offer effective alternatives.

 

[Grapeshot]

+1,000

Whiners whine, but do nothing, and fail to offer effective alternatives.

Indeed - Better to do something and fail in that attempt, than to do nothing and guarantee lack of success.

 

[California Right To Carry]

Indeed - Better to do something and fail in that attempt, than to do nothing and guarantee lack of success.

Tell that to those who oppose my California Open Carry lawsuit. The world is filled with incompetent people who lack even the most basic knowledge on a subject and yet this does not prevent them from throwing their virtual feces at those who try.

I applaud Friday's defense of Norman although it was a grave error in his saying that Florida could require a permit to carry a firearm. Putting all of one's eggs in the Norman case is a mistake. SCOTUS isn't granting cert petitions from convicted criminals like it once did. Obviously, I am not saying Norman is a criminal in my book but when it comes time for the clerks who filter out the cert petitions for the justices to review, cert petitions from criminal cases are the most likely to be tossed.

Those who support Open Carry in Florida should pool their pennies and file challenges to the Open Carry ban in each of Florida's three Federal districts. Learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before you. Challenge the license requirement and don't limit your challenge to handguns. Ideally, each lawsuit would have at least one plaintiff with a physical disability which prevents him from using a handgun to defend himself. Crimes committed in public with long guns are virtually non-existent compared to handguns which makes it difficult for the defense to argue "public safety."

Keep in mind that the courts can drag a case out for years. The longer you wait the more likely it is that we will lose one of the five justices on SCOTUS.

And don't write off the legislative approach either. You have a governor who said he will sign an Open Carry bill and a bill that made it to the floor before it was gutted.

 

[randian]

And don't write off the legislative approach either. You have a governor who said he will sign an Open Carry bill and a bill that made it to the floor before it was gutted.

It doesn't matter if the governor will sign an OC bill if the legislature won't deliver a good bill to him.

 

[California Right To Carry]

It doesn't matter if the governor will sign an OC bill if the legislature won't deliver a good bill to him.

Perhaps you did not read to the end of my sentence? You had a bill make it to final passage until the NRA stepped in. The leadership of the NRA is controlled by a bunch of old women and impotent old men. As much as they hate Open Carry they love money more. That is why the NRA pretended to do an about face on their opposition to Open Carry after people started cancelling their memberships in Texas and elsewhere. It isn't the loss of the membership dues that was hurting their pocketbook it was the lost advertising revenues from their magazines and the revenues they receive from the various "benefit/scam" offers you receive in the mail from the NRA.

Of course this will require that you organize and coordinate your efforts. It also means you can't rely on any person, group or organization in the pocket of the NRA, SAF or the other so called gun-rights groups who have supported lawsuits opposing Open Carry.

 

[77zach]

Perhaps you did not read to the end of my sentence? You had a bill make it to final passage until the NRA stepped in. The leadership of the NRA is controlled by a bunch of old women and impotent old men. As much as they hate Open Carry they love money more. That is why the NRA pretended to do an about face on their opposition to Open Carry after people started cancelling their memberships in Texas and elsewhere. It isn't the loss of the membership dues that was hurting their pocketbook it was the lost advertising revenues from their magazines and the revenues they receive from the various "benefit/scam" offers you receive in the mail from the NRA.

Of course this will require that you organize and coordinate your efforts. It also means you can't rely on any person, group or organization in the pocket of the NRA, SAF or the other so called gun-rights groups who have supported lawsuits opposing Open Carry.

This is not how it went down. Every Senate Democrat was against it and 3-4 Rhinos, thus the votes were not there. Rather that risk having no bill at all, Marion Hammer agreed to brief exposure language.

The original bill was excellent though; it didn't allow the king's men to accost us and demand our papers just for OCing. I think (but am not positive) that the senate is more pro gun now than in 2011. I'm pretty sure we even have a Democrat who will vote for it. It can't come up this year because school carry is going through and there is only so much political capital....

The only option, IMHO, is legislative. The kourts are for kangaroos.

 

[California Right To Carry]

This is not how it went down. Every Senate Democrat was against it and 3-4 Rhinos, thus the votes were not there. Rather that risk having no bill at all, Marion Hammer agreed to brief exposure language.

The original bill was excellent though; it didn't allow the king's men to accost us and demand our papers just for OCing. I think (but am not positive) that the senate is more pro gun now than in 2011. I'm pretty sure we even have a Democrat who will vote for it. It can't come up this year because school carry is going through and there is only so much political capital....

The only option, IMHO, is legislative. The kourts are for kangaroos.

And another thing one must avoid is believing in revisionist histories. In Marion Hammer's mind, the bill that was passed was an Open Carry bill.

Were it not for the courts we would not have had the Heller and McDonald decisions as well as nearly 200 years of court decisions saying that concealed carry is not a right but Open Carry is the right guaranteed by the US Constitution. There will always be judges who believe that they are not bound by US Supreme Court precedents or even bound by their own circuit precedents. Thanks to the concealed carry case out of the 10th Circuit, Peterson v. Martinez, any court which decides that Open Carry is not a right, or is a right which can be substituted with concealed carry creates a circuit split.

SCOTUS won't grant cert to correct mistakes of lower courts but it will grant cert petitions to resolve circuit splits.

I think Florida Open Carry proponents are fools for not challenging the Florida Open Carry ban via a Federal Civil suit instead of relying on a criminal case. The Florida Open Carry ban should have been challenged before the ink was dry on the McDonald decision.

It is still not too late. All you need is a competent attorney and plaintiffs who can withstand discovery.

 

[randian]

It can't come up this year because school carry is going through and there is only so much political capital....

That seems silly, why not do both in the same bill while we have a governor who will sign both?

 

[77zach]

And another thing one must avoid is believing in revisionist histories. In Marion Hammer's mind, the bill that was passed was an Open Carry bill.

Were it not for the courts we would not have had the Heller and McDonald decisions as well as nearly 200 years of court decisions saying that concealed carry is not a right but Open Carry is the right guaranteed by the US Constitution. There will always be judges who believe that they are not bound by US Supreme Court precedents or even bound by their own circuit precedents. Thanks to the concealed carry case out of the 10th Circuit, Peterson v. Martinez, any court which decides that Open Carry is not a right, or is a right which can be substituted with concealed carry creates a circuit split.

SCOTUS won't grant cert to correct mistakes of lower courts but it will grant cert petitions to resolve circuit splits.

I think Florida Open Carry proponents are fools for not challenging the Florida Open Carry ban via a Federal Civil suit instead of relying on a criminal case. The Florida Open Carry ban should have been challenged before the ink was dry on the McDonald decision.

It is still not too late. All you need is a competent attorney and plaintiffs who can withstand discovery.

Do you think Kennedy would go along with national Open Carry? I don't.

 

[77zach]

That seems silly, why not do both in the same bill while we have a governor who will sign both?

Marion Hammer is not anti open carry, it's just not a priority for her or most of the members she represents. I don't think she or Fl Carry want to cause too many waves that could endanger school carry. Keep in mind, the Florida Senate would never allow OC at schools, only CC. We'd have to amend the campus carry bill.....make waves.

I also think Fl Carry believed they would win Norman. That was very naive. I told them they would lose with an explanation as to why and now it's very late to be filing a bill.

 

[randian]

Marion Hammer is not anti open carry, it's just not a priority for her or most of the members she represents. I don't think she or Fl Carry want to cause too many waves that could endanger school carry.

If we're doing primary and secondary school carry then school administration buildings, which have a separate prohibition, need to be in that bill too otherwise everything at a school will be deemed "administrative" and off limits.

I don't know if they should be attached to school or campus carry, but vocational education schools should be toast as well. Why voc-ed, which is mostly for adults, is even on the list in the first place is bizarre.

Having airport terminals off limits is dunce-worthy as well, I don't see any shootouts in Arizona where's it's legal.

 

[77zach]

If we're doing primary and secondary school carry then school administration buildings, which have a separate prohibition, need to be in that bill too otherwise everything at a school will be deemed "administrative" and off limits.

I don't know if they should be attached to school or campus carry, but vocational education schools should be toast as well. Why voc-ed, which is mostly for adults, is even on the list in the first place is bizarre.

Having airport terminals off limits is dunce-worthy as well, I don't see any shootouts in Arizona where's it's legal.

Right, sorry, it would just be post secondary schools and vocational and technical institutions. Grade schools would remain "gun free" target rich environments.

 

[California Right To Carry]

Do you think Kennedy would go along with national Open Carry? I don't.

Justice Kennedy already did when he joined the majority decisions in Heller and McDonald. You seem to be making the same mistake that most novices do, that the facts of a particular case limit the scope of the decision. If that were true, Roe v. Wade would never have had any application outside of the state of Texas and even there its application would be in doubt as SCOTUS expressly declined to issue the injunction. For that matter, out entire court system would be upended and set back 800 years.

Limiting the scope of a decision to the facts of a particular case occurs only when a court expressly limits the scope of its decision and neither the Heller nor McDonald courts did so, not even implicitly.

The Heller Court engaged in an extensive historical analysis of the preexisting right to keep and bear arms and expressly stated that there were time, place and manner restrictions on the right. The right isn't to carry a firearm for any purpose nor is it a right to carry everywhere and in any manner. The right is to carry in case of confrontation in the home and in non-sensitive public places. Subject to certain 19th Century exceptions, such as carrying a concealed weapon while actually on a journey, there is no right to carry a concealed weapon in public.

And then there were certain aspects of the Second Amendment right, such as the commercial sale of firearms and what constitutes a "dangerous and unusual weapon" which the court expressly put off for future courts to decide.

The only Federal Court of Appeals which has expressly declined to decide on the scope of the Second Amendment right to carry outside of the home was the 4th Circuit, and that was a case in which the attorney (Alan Gura) needlessly argued that states can ban Open Carry as the permit did not distinguish between concealed and Open Carry.

If Norman's attorney is smart he will pursue his challenge in state court until the cases currently pending in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (including mine) have reached the cert stage. Should I win or lose my case before the 9th then it creates a clear circuit split with both the 10th and 7th Circuits. The Heller case was granted cert because the DC Circuit and Fifth Circuit had decided that the Second Amendment was an individual right unconnected with a militia whereas the 9th Circuit had decided that the Second Amendment was a collective right applying only to militias and limiting only the Federal government.

I don't see any of the five justices changing their mind. I think that there is a very real possibility that Justice Kagan will be a sixth vote, not because she likes hunting but because she says the most important thing to her in deciding cases is prior precedent.

Open Carry has two hundred years of prior precedent to rely on.

 

[California Right To Carry]

Marion Hammer is not anti open carry, it's just not a priority for her or most of the members she represents. I don't think she or Fl Carry want to cause too many waves that could endanger school carry. Keep in mind, the Florida Senate would never allow OC at schools, only CC. We'd have to amend the campus carry bill.....make waves.

I also think Fl Carry believed they would win Norman. That was very naive. I told them they would lose with an explanation as to why and now it's very late to be filing a bill.

The Florida legislature does not have to allow any kind of carry in schools or government buildings as per the Heller decision. There are certain as-applied challenges that could be made under the Second Amendment but under Heller (and McDonald) the presumption is that they are "sensitive" places where the bearing of arms can be prohibited.

As to Florida Carry, I am dubious of any organization that joins hands with Alan Gottlieb, the most prolific opponent of Open Carry we have. All of his carry lawsuits have argued that Open Carry can be banned.

 

[notalawyer]

Perhaps you did not read to the end of my sentence? You had a bill make it to final passage until the NRA stepped in. The leadership of the NRA is controlled by a bunch of old women and impotent old men. As much as they hate Open Carry they love money more. That is why the NRA pretended to do an about face on their opposition to Open Carry after people started cancelling their memberships in Texas and elsewhere. It isn't the loss of the membership dues that was hurting their pocketbook it was the lost advertising revenues from their magazines and the revenues they receive from the various "benefit/scam" offers you receive in the mail from the NRA.

Of course this will require that you organize and coordinate your efforts. It also means you can't rely on any person, group or organization in the pocket of the NRA, SAF or the other so called gun-rights groups who have supported lawsuits opposing Open Carry.

You claim to know what occurred with our open carry bill. You do not.

 

[California Right To Carry]

You claim to know what occurred with our open carry bill. You do not.

There is an old saying that it is best to remain silent and thought the fool than to open your mouth and dispel all doubt.

Here is a link to what Marion Hammer had to say. You can also Google a video or two where she rants against Open Carry and one where she has the gall to claim that Florida passed an Open Carry bill.

The first step to achieving a real Open Carry victory in Florida is to stop drinking the NRA kool-aid.

Perhaps you are unaware as well that the NRA has been in Federal court in the 9th Circuit arguing to uphold California's 1967 Open Carry ban (a ban it helped write) and has actively interfered and obstructed my legal effort to overturn that ban? Also, in the same lawsuit (Peruta v. San Diego) the NRA argued in support of California's Gun Free School Zone Act of 1995.

The NRA is the enemy as is so every so called gun-rights group which has opposed Open Carry.

 

[randian]

The Florida legislature does not have to allow any kind of carry in schools or government buildings as per the Heller decision.

They don't have to, but we should strongly encourage them to allow it. States that allow carry in primary and secondary schools (California, Utah), college campuses (California, Utah, Oregon), or airport terminals (California, Arizona) do not have violence problems in those locations. Florida has a number of other rather ticky-tack prohibited places that could probably be gotten rid of without much backlash.

 

[77zach]

Justice Kennedy already did when he joined the majority decisions in Heller and McDonald. You seem to be making the same mistake that most novices do, that the facts of a particular case limit the scope of the decision. If that were true, Roe v. Wade would never have had any application outside of the state of Texas and even there its application would be in doubt as SCOTUS expressly declined to issue the injunction. For that matter, out entire court system would be upended and set back 800 years.

Limiting the scope of a decision to the facts of a particular case occurs only when a court expressly limits the scope of its decision and neither the Heller nor McDonald courts did so, not even implicitly.

The Heller Court engaged in an extensive historical analysis of the preexisting right to keep and bear arms and expressly stated that there were time, place and manner restrictions on the right. The right isn't to carry a firearm for any purpose nor is it a right to carry everywhere and in any manner. The right is to carry in case of confrontation in the home and in non-sensitive public places. Subject to certain 19th Century exceptions, such as carrying a concealed weapon while actually on a journey, there is no right to carry a concealed weapon in public.

And then there were certain aspects of the Second Amendment right, such as the commercial sale of firearms and what constitutes a "dangerous and unusual weapon" which the court expressly put off for future courts to decide.

The only Federal Court of Appeals which has expressly declined to decide on the scope of the Second Amendment right to carry outside of the home was the 4th Circuit, and that was a case in which the attorney (Alan Gura) needlessly argued that states can ban Open Carry as the permit did not distinguish between concealed and Open Carry.

If Norman's attorney is smart he will pursue his challenge in state court until the cases currently pending in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (including mine) have reached the cert stage. Should I win or lose my case before the 9th then it creates a clear circuit split with both the 10th and 7th Circuits. The Heller case was granted cert because the DC Circuit and Fifth Circuit had decided that the Second Amendment was an individual right unconnected with a militia whereas the 9th Circuit had decided that the Second Amendment was a collective right applying only to militias and limiting only the Federal government.

I don't see any of the five justices changing their mind. I think that there is a very real possibility that Justice Kagan will be a sixth vote, not because she likes hunting but because she says the most important thing to her in deciding cases is prior precedent.

Open Carry has two hundred years of prior precedent to rely on.

I think it's very likely Mr Friday knows all that you wrote about. It will be a year, at minimum, until FLSC rules against Mr Norman, then they can go from there. That's encouraging about Kagan, I'll believe it when I see it though. SCOTUS giving this country national open carry would be the most surprising political action that happened in my lifetime, to me.