Which states specifically have criminal statutes forbidding public drilling or parading with firearms and what are the exact penalties in each?
Executive summary
A comprehensive, state-by-state list of criminal statutes that specifically forbid public "drilling" or "parading" with firearms and spell out exact penalties cannot be compiled from the provided reporting alone; the sources show that states have broad authority to regulate drilling/parading and that open-carry rules vary, but they stop short of listing every statute and penalty by state [1] [2]. The most concrete, attributable facts available from these materials are: a handful of states completely prohibit open carry (California, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois) and therefore would criminalize many public displays of weapons under their open‑carry bans [3], and federal and public repositories exist—ATF’s state law compendium and RAND’s State Firearm Law Navigator—that are the appropriate tools to locate the exact statutory language and penalties in each jurisdiction [2] [4] [5].
1. What the phrase “drilling or parading with firearms” means under existing reporting
Legal commentary and Supreme Court digests treat “drilling and parading” as a distinct category—historically tied to militia regulation—that states may control by statute unless their constitutions forbid it, but the sources do not equate that phrase neatly with contemporary open‑carry laws; instead, they note legislatures may “control and regulate all organizations, drilling, and parading of military bodies and associations” subject to militia laws, leaving interpretation to state courts and legislatures [1]. That historical framing matters because some states regulate formal armed parades or paramilitary drilling while others regulate public carrying of firearms more broadly; the sources do not provide a one‑to‑one mapping from the historic phrase to every modern statute [1].
2. Which states the reporting identifies as effectively banning public armed display today
Aggregated state data in the reporting flags four states—California, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois—as having complete prohibitions on open carry of all firearms, meaning public display of a firearm in those jurisdictions is generally unlawful and would be prosecuted under those open‑carry statutes rather than under a separate “drilling/parading” offense [3]. The Statista summary cited explicitly identifies those four states as the only ones that “completely prohibited open carry for all firearms” as of the cited data [3]. That fact does not by itself specify the statutory provision names or penalty ranges in each state; it is a high‑level classification drawn from comparative databases [3].
3. Where to find the exact statutory language and penalties (and what the sources recommend)
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives compiles a State Laws and Published Ordinances – Firearms guide with tables, citations and links to state reference libraries that is explicitly designed for locating precise statutory text and penalties [2] [5]. RAND’s State Firearm Law Navigator similarly maintains a longitudinal database identifying which states have enacted which classes of firearm laws and when, which researchers can use to track the enactment and scope of regulations that could include parade/drill prohibitions [4]. Those two resources are the reporting’s recommended starting points to identify the statute number, legislative text, and prescribed criminal penalties in any given state [2] [4].
4. Notable statutory frameworks and enforcement angles surfaced in the reporting
The reporting also surfaces preemption statutes and state enforcement mechanisms that influence how violations are prosecuted: for example, Florida’s preemption regime carries penalties and has been upheld in appellate decisions, which affects how municipal attempts to regulate public arms displays are treated and punished under state law [6]. More broadly, summaries of state gun laws in sources like FindLaw and Everytown show states vary widely—from civil fines to felony exposure depending on context—and the reporting cautions that penalties are tied to the specific statutory offense (e.g., open‑carry violation, unlawful paramilitary activity, disorderly conduct or weapons offenses) rather than a single national standard [7] [8].
5. Conclusion and limitation of the record
The available reporting establishes the legal framework—states may and do regulate drilling/parading and some states ban open carry outright [1] [3]—and points to authoritative repositories (ATF, RAND) for precise statutes and penalty schedules [2] [4] [5]; however, the provided sources do not contain a complete, state‑by‑state list of the specific criminal statutes and exact penalties for “drilling or parading with firearms,” so locating each statute and its penalty requires consulting the ATF tables, state codes, or the RAND navigator for each jurisdiction [2] [4] [5]. Alternative viewpoints in the reporting caution that some jurisdictions treat parade/drill prohibitions as narrow militia controls while others fold public display into general open‑carry or weapons statutes, creating divergent enforcement outcomes [1] [3].