GAINESVILLE – The man at the center of a landmark court decision allowing people in Florida to openly carry guns – officially starting Thursday — is watching the consequences of his legal fight from inside a jail cell in Florida's Panhandle.
Despite the appeals court's dramatic expansion of gun rights in the Sunshine State, the defendant in the case won't be allowed to possess a gun even once he's released. In an exclusive interview from the Escambia County Jail – convicted months ago in an unrelated, misdemeanor domestic violence case — Stanley Victor McDaniels, 42, called himself a patriot and indicated he has no regrets.
"I am thankful that through my current persecution, I have been given another opportunity to change Florida law for the better," McDaniels said in a video interview from the jail. He spoke with a reporter from Fresh Take Florida, a news service operated by the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. McDaniels is expected to be released in January.
In the interview, McDaniels described a secret war fought in the courts to limit gun rights. He acknowledged that, because of his recent domestic violence conviction, he is barred under federal law from possessing or buying a gun even after he serves his jail term. The irony isn't lost on him.
"Even if I was free, I wouldn't be able to participate in the now legal open carry of a firearm, even though my case set the new precedent," he said. "One may think I have sacrificed too much to further the American dream of liberty and justice. But as a patriot, I would do it all again, as all true patriots would."
A three-judge panel for the 1st District Court of Appeals unanimously struck down Florida’s decades-old ban on openly carrying firearms, declaring the law unconstitutional Sept. 10 and calling open carry the “default mode of bearing arms.” It wasn't immediately clear how many visibly armed citizens will be walking the streets of Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville or elsewhere starting this week.
Some sheriffs discouraged it.
“You don’t scare away real bad guys by carrying a firearm in a holster. You don’t scare real bad guys by slinging an (assault rifle) over your shoulder,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a viral social media post. “A real bad guy will take it from you.”
The 1st District Court of Appeal’s jurisdiction runs from Gainesville through the Panhandle, but Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said last week he would not appeal and instructed law enforcement statewide to cease prosecuting open carry cases. The deadline for filing any appeal elapsed Thursday, making the ruling official statewide.
It’s still illegal in Florida to display guns in a rude, careless, angry or threatening manner, the attorney general said.
Florida was one of only a handful of states that had outlawed a gun owner wearing a pistol on their hip or strapping a rifle over his shoulder and walking on city streets and inside businesses or restaurants where owners don’t object. California, Illinois and New York generally prohibit it; about 10 other states require a permit.
McDaniels deliberately flouted Florida’s open carry ban by standing at a busy Pensacola intersection on the Fourth of July in 2022, waving at cars with a loaded Beretta pistol visibly tucked in his waistband. Holding a copy of the U.S. Constitution in one hand, he said he aimed to challenge the law all the way to the Supreme Court, according to court records. The appeals ruling vacated McDaniels’ conviction and reversed his sentence.
Video from his arrest that day showed McDaniels surrounded by four uniformed police officers, his hands holding the Constitution near his chest, as one of them moved quickly to remove the pistol.
“The secret war being fought with pen and paper in local, state and federal courtrooms has taken a major turn to restore our God-given constitutional rights with recent Supreme Court decisions,” McDaniels said in his jailhouse interview.
Courts have long handed down rulings at the center of consequential civil or constitutional rights cases involving defendants with complicated histories. Larry Flynt, whose legal fight expanded the scope of First Amendment protections, was a controversial pornography publisher. Ernesto Miranda, whose Supreme Court case resulted in new rules that criminal suspects must be informed of their rights before being questioned, had confessed to kidnapping and rape until the court overturned his conviction. Miranda was later stabbed to death in a bar fight.
McDaniels was an avid gun enthusiast. In addition to his Beretta pistol seized after his arrest that day, his collection included at least seven other pistols and at least 13 shotguns and bolt-action and assault-style rifles – all seized by the sheriff during domestic violence investigations in 2023 and 2024.
McDaniels is serving a jail sentence facing misdemeanor charges of domestic violence and violating an injunction involving his ex-wife. She told sheriff’s deputies he parked his motorcycle last year outside the preschool where she worked and later followed her driving on his motorcycle, despite a court order to stay away. A judge sentenced him in early September to roughly three months in jail after he wrote her an email discussing their relationship.
McDaniels argued that he emailed his ex-wife’s lawyer to discuss custody issues, but a judge noted that he addressed the correspondence to his ex-wife directly.
“This is malicious prosecution by the state,” McDaniels told the judge. “This is malicious prosecution by my ex-wife. How can this really be justice? This is not justice.”
His ex-wife did not return voice messages left with her divorce lawyer or her parents over several days. The phone number listed for her in court and voter registration records was not up to date.
McDaniels had been convicted in 2000 on a felony drug charge of possessing LSD that he intended to sell, according to court records. A felony conviction typically would preclude someone in Florida from owning or buying a gun, but the circuit judge in that case agreed to withhold adjudication – effectively throwing out the case – if McDaniels complied with terms of his 12 months of probation, including substance abuse therapy and submitting to random drug testing.
Florida law still allows businesses – including Disney World, supermarkets, restaurants and movie theaters – to set their own rules about whether to allow guns to be carried openly on their property. People with guns displayed openly who won’t leave such businesses can be charged with armed trespass.
The ruling doesn’t affect other state and federal limits on carrying guns, such as on school or college campuses, courthouses or federal buildings.
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at s.ranta@freshtakeflorida.com.
