Following Wedneday’s decision by the Florida First District Court of Appeal striking the state’s ban on openly carrying firearms, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey says his deputies will no longer enforce the ban – even though the law hasn’t changed yet.
In a video message posted on X Wednesday night, Sheriff Ivey, a longtime advocate for the Legislature to pass an open-carry law, said that he had informed his deputies of the policy shift. The statute at issue (790.053) makes it “unlawful for any person to openly carry on or about his or her person any firearm or electric weapon or device.”
“While the opinion at this point is not yet final as the court allows for time for the filing of a motion for rehearing or reconsideration, there’s no reason to expect that the court will reverse its decision,” Ivey said.
He’s not the only sheriff making that move.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office, and the Pensacola Police Department will no longer enforce the state’s open carry law either, according to the Pensacola News Journal.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office announced on Wednesday that it has informed officers that they cannot detain or arrest solely based on openly carrying a firearm.
The ruling isn’t final until the 15-day window for a rehearing has run out, but the state likely won’t appeal the decision. Ron DeSantis advocated as recently as Monday for the Legislature to change the ban on open carry, and Attorney General James Uthmeier’s said on Wednesday that the court’s ruling was “a big win for the Second Amendment rights of Floridians.”
The ruling is only applicable to the First District, which encompasses most of the counties in North Florida. Brevard County is not within that jurisdiction.
Ivey said he had consulted with Wayne Scheiner, the state attorney in Florida’s 18th Judicial Circuit, as well as the attorney representing the Florida Sheriffs Association. He said he had informed all of the police departments in the county that they no longer needed to enforce the ban.
A spokesperson for the police department in Palm Bay, the largest city in Brevard County, confirmed that it is following suit. “At the direction of the State Attorneys’s Office and Florida Police Chiefs Association, we will not be enforcing that statute as it pertains to open carry,” said Lt. Virginia Kilmer.
Not all law enforcement agencies are dropping enforcement — at least not yet.
“We have not changed our policy,” said Cpl. Jamie Miller with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department.
“We have not issued a change in policy yet on this matter but it is anticipated soon,” said Javonni Hampton with the Leon County Sheriff’s Department.
Several other sheriffs departments did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Florida Sheriffs Association, nor the attorney general’s office.
In its ruling, the First District noted that the Florida Supreme Court had upheld the ban on open carry in its 2017 ruling of Norman v. State. However, Judge Stephanie Ray wrote that the court felt bound instead to apply a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case called New York State Rifle & Association v. Bruen, which struck down New York’s concealed carry restrictions.
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