Florida attorney general skips defending law banning open carry

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida’s Republican attorney general won’t fight a challenge to the state’s ban on openly carrying firearms, sidestepping a court fight in the nation’s third largest state.

Ashley Moody, who was first elected in 2018, has routinely sued President Joe Biden’s administration and publicly complained about authorities who refuse to follow the law. But her office turned down requests to represent a state prosecutor and a county sheriff who were the named defendants in a federal lawsuit brought by a gun rights organization that argues the ban violates the 2nd and 14th Amendment.

This means that Moody, a rumored candidate for governor in 2026, is skipping a potentially game-changing lawsuit that could result in guns being carried publicly in the tourist-dependent state.

The state attorney being sued in the lawsuit asked Buddy Jacobs — who has been a long-time lobbyist for the association that represents prosecutors — to represent him in the case after Moody’s office turned down a request to represent the prosecutor. Jacobs told POLITICO that Moody’s office also declined a request by the St. Lucie County sheriff to get involved in the case.

Kylie Mason, a spokesperson for Moody, would not say why the attorney general had declined to defend Florida’s open carry law. Mason only said in an email that “our office may become involved at a later stage.”

One of the jobs of the state attorney general is to help defend the constitutionality of Florida laws, and Moody has defended laws limiting guns in the past. Moody, for example, is currently helping defend the Florida law that legislators passed after the Parkland shooting that raised the age limit to purchase a rifle from 18 to 21. That’s despite her opposing raising the age limit on the campaign trail in 2018.

Moody has intervened in other, lower profile cases recently. Earlier this year she stepped into a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a recently-enacted law regarding Gainesville city utilities. In 2022, Moody intervened in a federal lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union filed against the Leon County court clerk that included a challenge to the state’s bail bonds law.

Moody has taken on a prominent role challenging the Biden administration and has sharply criticized Democratic politicians who she said fail to enforce the law. At a recent press conference in August, Moody took aim at California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other politicians that she said were letting there be “chaos in the streets” due to their unwillingness to enforce laws they did not agree with.

“Laws are nothing if they are not enforced,” Moody said at the time.

The office of Thomas Bakkedahl, the state attorney who represents several counties in Florida’s Treasure Coast region and is being sued, directed questions to Jacobs. A spokesperson for the St. Lucie County sheriff did not immediately return a request for comment.

“I was surprised when I heard the attorney general would not defend the state but I won’t speculate as to reasons,” said State Attorney Dave Aronberg, a Democrat from Palm Beach County who is not part of the litigation.

But he added that: “There’s not a lot of support for open carry in Florida which is why the plaintiffs are seeking to have the courts do it rather than the Legislature.”

The state Supreme Court has previously upheld the law banning open carry, but the split ruling came seven years ago — before the court’s makeup was changed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis and Moody are considered allies, but the two are elected independently of each other. The governor, who is term-limited, has not overtly gotten involved in the race to replace him.

Gun rights activists did push to scrap Florida’s long-standing open carry law when legislators eliminated permit requirements for concealed weapons. DeSantis said he was willing to consider allowing open carry, but certain legislative leaders — including outgoing state Senate President Kathleen Passidomo — opposed the move. Passidomo cited opposition from Florida’s sheriffs as one of the reasons she did not support open carry.

Gun Owners of America, along with a Palm Beach County gun owner, filed a lawsuit in early August calling the state’s ban on open carry a “blatant infringement” of the Second Amendment rights of Floridians and a violation of equal protection rights.

The gun lawsuit is still in the early stages, although initially those challenging the law nearly got a default judgment because there was no initial response by the defendants.

Last week, Jacobs filed a motion asking the judge to toss out the lawsuit on multiple grounds including that the dispute should be handled in state court. The motion also contends that Florida’s open carry restriction is constitutional and is consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation. But the motion also argues that the case should be at least put on hold until a federal appeals court decides the ongoing challenge against the Parkland law.

Luis Valdes, Florida state director for Gun Owners of America, said that only Moody could answer why she has not gotten involved in the lawsuit.

But he said that the organization brought the lawsuit in federal court because the GOP supermajority in the Legislature may “claim to be pro-gun” but their decision to block open carry legislation “reflects their lack of support for the Second Amendment.” Valdes also criticized DeSantis for failing to get legislators to act.

“Florida is the only conservative state in the country to ban open carry and so called pro-gun officials have failed to repeal this gun control,” Valdes said.