Dale Lee Norman, Petitioner v. State of Florida, Respondent

Summary

The court approved the Fourth District’s decision and held that Florida’s prohibition on openly carrying firearms, while permitting licensed concealed carry and recognizing statutory exceptions, violates neither the Second Amendment nor article I, section 8, of the Florida Constitution. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the court concluded that public safety and reducing firearm-related violence are important governmental objectives and that restricting open carry while allowing concealed carry is substantially related to those objectives. The court also treated the statutory exceptions as affirmative defenses and did not reach the vagueness challenge to the brief-and-open-display exception. Justice Canady, dissenting and joined by Justice Polston, would have held the open-carry ban unconstitutional because the State’s asserted safety justifications were speculative and insufficient under intermediate scrutiny.