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Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida 1:20 p.m. ET March 2, 2017

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Rejecting arguments by Second Amendment supporters, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a longstanding state ban on people openly carrying firearms in public.

Justices, in a 4-2 ruling, said the state law "regulates only one manner of bearing arms and does not impair the exercise of the fundamental right to bear arms." In doing so, the Supreme Court sided with the 4th District Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2015 against a man arrested in St. Lucie County for openly carrying a gun in a holster.

"(We) agree with the 4th District and are satisfied that the state's prohibition on openly carrying firearms in public with specified exceptions --- such as authorizing the open carrying of guns to and from and during lawful recreational activities --- while still permitting those guns to be carried, albeit in a concealed manner, reasonably fits the state's important government interests of public safety and reducing gun-related violence," said the 47-page majority opinion, written by Justice Barbara Pariente and joined fully by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and Justice Peggy Quince. Justice R. Fred Lewis agreed with the result but did not sign on to the opinion.

But Justice Charles Canady, in a dissent joined by Justice Ricky Polston, said the law "collides with the Second Amendment right as understood" in a landmark 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a Washington, D.C. gun law. He described as "feeble" arguments that the open-carry ban is justified for public-safety reasons.

"Of course, many people are made uncomfortable by the fact that others are permitted to keep and bear arms at all," Canady wrote in the 10-page dissent. "But contemporary sensibilities cannot be the test. Such sensibilities are no more a basis for defeating the historic right to open carrying than for defeating the understanding that the Second Amendment recognizes the right of individuals to keep and bear arms."

Justice Alan Lawson, who joined the court at the end of December, did not take part in the case.

The challenge to the law stemmed from the 2012 arrest in St. Lucie County of Dale Norman, who had a concealed-weapons license but was carrying a gun openly in a holster. A jury found Norman guilty of a second-degree misdemeanor, and a trial judge imposed a $300 fine and court costs, according to Thursday's ruling.

Norman, who was represented by attorney Eric Friday of the Second Amendment group Florida Carry, then took the case to the 4th District Court of Appeal before ultimately going to the Supreme Court.

Pariente's majority opinion traced issues in the case to a 1987 law that authorized the state to issue concealed-weapons licenses. She wrote that lawmakers also passed a separate measure that year barring people from openly carrying firearms.

The majority opinion drew a distinction between the Florida open-carry banand the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Washington, D.C. case and another case involving gun laws in Chicago. She wrote that unlike those laws, "which completely banned the possession of handguns in one's home, Florida's open carry law regulates only how firearms are borne in public."

"Because this law does not amount to an entire ban on a class of guns or completely prohibit the bearing of firearms in public and does not affect the right to keep arms in one's home we conclude that Florida's open carry law does not severely burden the right," Pariente wrote.

Canady, however, pointed to the long period of time between the 1987 legislation and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 2008 case, known as District of Columbia v. Heller.

"More to the point, the Legislature decided that the sacrifice of open carrying was a necessary and appropriate response to the public opposition generated by the passage of the concealed-carry law," Canady wrote. "But the legal landscape has now dramatically shifted. Heller has settled that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. And Heller's historical analysis points strongly to the conclusion that the individual right includes the right to carry arms openly in public."

Thursday's ruling came five days before the start of the 2017 legislative session, which is expected to include a series of debates about gun rights. Lawmakers last year did not pass a proposal that would have allowed people with concealed-weapons licenses to openly carry firearms.

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Justices uphold ban on openly carrying guns - Tallahassee.com

Okay, Ineedto go off for a minute. You guys knowI dont get fired up often and it really does take a lot to fire me up, but once that fire is lit its all, Burn, baby, BURN!

Well, its burning and heres why:

LADIES: I love that so many of you are embracing your second amendment rights and not only becoming gun owners, but becoming responsibly armed! I cannot tell you how immensely proud I am to know that there are so many more women, daughters, mothers, caretakers, wives, nurses, teachers, homemakers, and female citizens who have joined the ranks of gun owners in America and are ready to defend themselves and protect their loved ones if needed.

That being said, as it iswith every trend, there area few women who have been all too happy to jump on the 2A train for their own advancement. You know who Im talking about. The ladies that post videos of themselves shooting ARs in tank tops, posing with their gun as they aretea cupping, posting pictures with their finger on the trigger you know: showing their assets while announcing their ignorance.

Well Im done.

I have had it with the social acceptance of these pistol princesses. It does nothing to advance our cause and it makes us all look like the gun-licking idiots the gun control advocateskeep saying we are.

If you really are a proficient gun owner and true advocate of our second amendment rights, dont talk about it, show people.

Stop talking about changes and makethem, stop posing with guns and shootthem, stop posting stupid selfies from the gun range and pay attentionwhen youre there, stop talking about things you know nothing about and learnabout them, stop bragging about what youre going to do for 2A and just DO IT, stop it just stop it already, you look RIDICULOUS!!!!

Okay, so in all seriousness 99.4% of women just want to help others, not advance their own popularity through firearms. We look at things like, if you know something that you think other women may not know, why not show that in aselfie? If you have a question about something, why not research the answer and put that into a post or make a Facebook Live video to encourage others to chime in to find their answers? If you take a firearms course, why not share the information and geo-tag your area so others looking for quality training can see your review? If youre volunteering with an NRA grassroots campaign, why not challenge your friends to join you in a smart social media post?

There are so many ways toshow your 2A assets without looking like an ass.Try thinking more of the greater good than focusing your camera on your goodies.

If youre half the gunny gal you claim to be, youll get twice the attention for being the real deal.

or continue beingjust another flash in the pan, thats fine, too. Those will eventually burn out and are quickly forgotten, although they do make good cautionary tales for the next generation of women.

Author's Bio: Jenn Jacques

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Ladies: Stop Posing and Start Advocating For the Second Amendment - Bearing Arms

AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

Two New Second Amendment Challenges AmmoLand Shooting Sports News Healey alleges that electrical weapons are arms in common use and therefore their possession by law-abiding adult citizens is protected by the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The complaint alleges that the constitutional rights of the ...

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Two New Second Amendment Challenges - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

A federal appeals court upheld Marylands ban on popular AR-15-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines last week, delivering a significant win to gun-control advocates who argue that the Second Amendment does not apply to military-style weapons.

Marylands ban, enacted in 2013 soon after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, was allowed to stand in a 10-4 decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, that ruled the Second Amendment does not protect what the judges called exceptionally lethal weapons of war.

While the ruling is the fifth to uphold a state ban on assault weapons, according to The Trace, the Virginia federal appeals court is the highest yet to affirm a standard for classifying assault weapons, one gun advocates say will significantly narrow the scope of the Second Amendment. And one of the lawyers who brought the case now has set his sights on the Supreme Court.

It is absurd to hold that the most popular rifle in America is not a protected arm under the Second Amendment, Jennifer Baker, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association, said in a statement. The Second Amendment protects arms that are in common use at the time for lawful purposes like self-defense.

Like all constitutional rights, the Second Amendment is limited. For instance, civilians cant buy automatic weapons, like machine guns. But now seven states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws banning military-style automatic weapons like the AR-15, a version of which was used in the Sandy Hook massacre which took the lives of 26 people, mostly children and the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Florida, where 49 were killed and 53 wounded.

In the past, circuit courts have relied on how common a weapon is when determining if its covered by the Second Amendment, according to Hannah Shearer, an attorney with the Law Center for Gun Violence Prevention. But with the 4th Circuit ruling, the judges gave new credence to a second standard: if a weapon could cause military-level destruction.

The AR-15, the Maryland ruling majority opinion reads, is simply the semiautomatic version of the M16 rifle used by our military and around the world. That deadly ancestry, according to the opinion, means that the Supreme Court excludes AR-15-type rifles and firearms like it from the Second Amendment.

Those AR-15-style rifles are some of the most popular firearms among U.S. consumers today.

[Under the ruling,] the Second Amendment doesnt even apply to the most common and popular semiautomatic rifles being sold today, said Jay Porter, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the Maryland case. Its absurd.

But some gun control advocates say the common use standard alone is insufficient.

It would suggest that if the gun industry floods the market with an extremely dangerous destructive weapon, if they can flood the market quick enough before legislatures begin banning this product, then theres nothing a legislature can do about it because all of a [sudden] those products are in common use, said attorney Jon Lowry, director of the Brady Center to Fight Gun Violence Legal Action Project.

The common use test comes out of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v Heller. If a gun is in common use for law-abiding purposes, the test goes, then its protected by the Second Amendment. But in its Heller ruling, the Supreme Court introduced a second caveat: Weapons that are most useful in military service M-16 rifles and the like may be banned.

Besides outlawing the ownership of a class of assault weapons including semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines and pistol grips the Maryland law also prohibits the sale and transfer of large-capacity magazines, which typically hold more than 10 rounds.

Gun lobby groups, however, have long argued that semiautomatic weapons are constitutionally protected.

But in the majority opinion, the federal appeals court judges reason that the difference between automatic and semiautomatic fire is only a matter of seconds between rounds. Instead, they emphasized high-capacity magazines and assault weapons ability to turn clubs and school into battlegrounds and their use in massacres from San Bernardino, California, to the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

While only 11 percent of mass shootings between January 2009 and July 2015 involved high-capacity magazines or assault weapons equipped with them those shootings tended to be much deadlier than those committed with other firearms, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.

This opinion rested its reasoning on the facts of whats happening when people who shouldnt have them get ahold of weapons that were designed for military use and inflict horror and terror in public spaces, said Shearer. So in that respect, it provides an original blueprint for looking at those social problems and coming up with solutions for commonsense gun laws.

And that focus on military-level lethality, instead of commonality, is what lawyers across the aisle say might be the rulings greatest, or most misguided, legacy. Ultimately though, its anyones guess how many courts will follow the 4th Circuits lead. Or if theyll get the chance.

In the past, lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in state assault weapon cases didnt always send rulings to the Supreme Court for review, but Porter said he will. Basing an entire ruling on one half of a sentence in a Supreme Court case, he said, is not enough to restrict a constitutional right.

The real point is that no other court has done anything like this. Not even close, he said. [This is] the type of case that the Supreme Court should take, must take maybe will take.

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Lethal weapons of war - VICE News

St. Paul, MN Second Amendment advocacy organizations in Minnesota are responding to three firearm bills introduced by the DFL in the Minnesota State Legislature.

During a Thursday press conference DFL lawmakers unveiled three pieces of firearm legislation, fostering concern in several of Minnesotas Second Amendment supporters.

Senator Jeff Hayden (DFL Minneapolis), who lost his younger sister, Taylor, to gun violence last year while she was in Atlanta, introduced the Taylor Hayden Gun Violence Protection Act which would dedicate $200,000 in taxpayer dollars every year to be given to anti-gun groups like Everytown and Protect MN.

Hayden presented alongside law enforcement officers, anti-gun advocates, and his fellow DFL lawmakers, who introduced two additional pieces of anti-gun legislation. One bill would allow Minnesotans to obtain a court order to withhold guns from mentally unstable family members. The other bill would require background checks for Minnesotans who buy or receive guns from another private citizen. Both bills were introduced in previous legislative sessions.

We were sorry to hear of the loss that Senator Haydens family has suffered with the tragic murder of his sister last year. However, what was proposed last week is more of the same tired old gun control strategies of the past brought out from the same groups, with the same messaging, and the same falsehoods said Bryan Strawser, Chairman of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, explaining, Voters across the state rejected their message of gun control soundly in November. Gun control groups spent almost a million dollars in out-of-state funding to win seats in the Minnesota legislature, and succeeded in only two races. Instead, voters sent the strongest pro-Second Amendment majority in recent history to Saint Paul.

Strawser is correct in his assessment of Minnesotans electing a very pro-Second Amendment majority. As Alpha News previously reported, Republicans in the State Legislature introduced bills in January to address permitless-carry and stand-your-ground legislation.

The Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance wrote a Facebook post rejecting the three pieces of DFL gun legislation, stating, The new one (bill) will force the STATE, using your money, to fund anti-gun advocacy groups. These will need to be blocked.

Subscribe to Alpha News as we continue to track this legislation.

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2nd Amendment Groups Frustrated with Proposed DFL Firearm Legislation - Alpha News MN