Floridians will be able to carry concealed guns without a permit under a bill Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Monday, giving the governor another legislative victory as he prepares a campaign for president.
The new law will allow anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida to carry one without a permit. It means training and a background check will not be required to carry concealed guns in public. It takes effect July 1.
The arguments over the legislation were divided along political lines, with Republicans saying law-abiding citizens have a right to carry guns and protect themselves. They say most people will still want to get a permit because it will allow them to carry concealed weapons in states with reciprocal agreements and to be able to purchase guns without a waiting period.
However, Democrats – pointing to mass shootings in Florida like the massacre at the 2016 Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the deadly 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland – say the new law will only make the state more dangerous.
Nearly 3 million Floridians have a concealed weapons permit. While a background check and three-day waiting period will still be required to purchase a gun from a licensed dealer, they are not required for private transactions or exchanges of weapons.
DeSantis has said he thinks Florida should go even further and allow people to openly carry guns. While some lawmakers have pushed for open carry, it doesn’t appear the Legislature will pass such legislation this session.
The bill signing comes five years after then-Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, signed a bill creating gun restrictions after 17 students and faculty were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Under DeSantis, momentum has swung back toward expanding gun rights rather than placing limits on them.
(AP)
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5 Responses
So, who is dying to go to Florida?
Good on you, Floridians! Welcome to the Constitutional Carry Club with a membership of 142.7 million people across 26 states! You’re now the 27th, with hopefully 25 more states to “get woke”.
Correction, 23 more states. I was going by Obama’s math.
However, Democrats – pointing to mass shootings in Florida like the massacre at the 2016 Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the deadly 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland – say the new law will only make the state more dangerous.
How, exactly, will it do that? This is the fatal flaw in the Democrats’ position — they simply cannot come up with a single way in which requiring a permit for concealed carry makes anyone safer. The Pulse shooter was an Islamist terrorist, and the Parkland shooter was a psycho teenager with a long history of criminal activity that the Democrat-controlled school board deliberately covered up. Neither one of them had a permit to carry, and neither one cared. They carried anyway, because criminals don’t care about the law, especially if they don’t intend to survive anyway.
The law did nothing to stop them, and can’t do anything to stop anyone else like them. All it can and does do is make it needlessly difficult for good people to carry — the kind of people whom we want to carry, whose carrying makes everyone safer.
The very idea of requiring a permit to exercise a fundamental right is constitutionally suspect. It requires a compelling reason. Can you imagine requiring a permit for reading a newspaper, or for voting?! So the lack of such a reason should automatically mean the permit should not be required.
DeSantis…..not a saint and definitely not presidential quality…..yes, go to Florida……it is by water and one can leave.