Palm Beach Post Attacks Open Carry Straw Man

The Palm Beach Post published an opinion piece on September 18, 2025. While the Post says the article is only the opinion of the authors, this correspondent could not find any mention of who the authors were.

The authors show they lack significant information about open carry. A couple of years ago, as of 2022, only four states prohibited the general open carry of modern handguns. They were California, Florida, Illinois and New York. As the divide between the states following Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment widened after the Bruen decision in 2022,  New Jersey made it illegal to open carry with a permit, Connecticut and Maryland banned the general open carry of handguns in 2023, even with a permit, for self defense. There are now six states which ban the general open carry of modern handguns in public for self defense. Thus, lawful open carry of handguns is not a crime in 44 states, not 47. From the Palmbeachpost.com:

Let’s be clear. Lawful open carry is not a crime in the 47 states that allow some form of it, and that now includes Florida. Only California, Illinois and New York still prohibit open carry. While some gun enthusiasts may wonder what took Florida so long, the rest of state residents will have to adjust to a major change in law that came with little fanfare.

The legislature in Florida has been heavily debating the subject for many years. I would not call that “without fanfare”. The authors make a good point about current law requiring gun carriers to act responsibly. From the article:

No one expects to now see an outpouring of gun-toting Second Amendment enthusiasts parading their hardware in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park or along West Palm Beach’s Clematis Avenue. The state still provides ample legal protection for property owners to prohibit firearms from their property and law enforcement to continue to police those who exhibit firearms in a “rude, careless, angry or threatening manner in public,” Uthmeier wrote in a memo to police.

Then the authors attempt to re-write history. Open carry in Florida is not a new right. It was only banned, in general in 1987, 90 years after the law was passed requiring gun carriers to be responsible. The statute, 790.10, was passed in 1897 with a few changes since:

790.10 Improper exhibition of dangerous weapons or firearms.—If any person having or carrying any dirk, sword, sword cane, firearm, electric weapon or device, or other weapon shall, in the presence of one or more persons, exhibit the same in a rude, careless, angry, or threatening manner, not in necessary self-defense, the person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

The authors of the Post article claim open carry is a”new right”. It is not. They should have used the term recently restored, not “new-found”.

Now that open carry is the law, gun owners, Second Amendment enthusiasts, along with state and local governments will have to step up to ensure that this new-found freedom isn’t abused. New rights require greater responsibility.

This is part of the Left’s attempt to ignore most history. Second Amendment rights are not “new rights’. They have not been created recently. They are being restored after severe infringements lasting for more than a hundred years in most states. Most of the infringements happened after the Civil War, as legislatures worried about freed slaves having access to arms, or trying to tamp down dueling culture. Most of those restrictions were on concealed carry. Kentucky was one of the first to ban concealed carry, in 1813. The state supreme court ruled, in 1822, the ban violated using Kentucky State Constitution. Here is a small excerpt from that opinion:

But to be in conflict with the constitution, it is not essential that the act should contain a prohibition against bearing arms in every possible form–it is the right to bear arms in defence of the citizens and the state, that is secured by the constitution, and whatever restrains the full and complete exercise of that right, though not an entire destruction of it, is forbidden by the explicit language of the constitution.

This stayed in effect until 1850, when Kentucky changed the state constitution to allow the legislature to ban the carry of concealed weapons. Almost all of the state infringements on the carry of arms happened after the Supreme Court ruled the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states, in 1833. This was reversed after the Civil War, with the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court refused to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment on the states until the court adopted the partial “incorporation” doctrine which held rights had to be “incorporated” into the Constitution, against the states, by the Supreme Court. About a hundred years later, the Supreme Court incorporated the Second Amendment into the Constitution with the decision in McDonald v City of Chicago.

This correspondent has openly carried holstered handguns in public for thousands of hours, in several states. The Post authors imply open carriers often abuse their right to carry. It is a false premise. Most people do not even notice a person is openly carrying. Most of the rest pretend to not notice. A few assume the person openly carrying is a law officer of some type. The response to open carry as political speech is applauded by most people. Very, very few find open carry offensive.

There is no “right to not be offended” in the Constitution. Open carry is not just protected by the Second Amendment, it should also be protected by the First as symbolic, powerful, political speech.

©2025 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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