The Florida First District Court of Appeals recently ruled that Florida public universities must permit firearms to be kept in an encasement inside a vehicle on campus. You can read the opinion here.

Florida state, public colleges, like many universities around the country had rules against bringing weapons, including firearms anywhere onto campus.  However, in Florida we have a statute that specifically addresses the right to keep a firearm in a vehicle on campus. Universities don’t like any firearms on campus – zero tolerance. However, firearm carrier advocacy groups fought these campus bans and won!

Now, at any of the 12 or so Florida state universities and the about 30 more community colleges, students are legally permitted to bring a firearm onto campus to keep enclosed inside their vehicle. For example, Florida International University (FIU) in Miami is implementing this new mandate and training its police officers. You can read about FIU’s implementation here.

Carrying a firearm either openly or concealed anywhere else on campus is still prohibited. Also, this ruling does not cover carrying a weapon on any private university campus. You always need to check directly with the rules of the individual university to be sure.