I knew that the senior senator in the Florida legislature had taken this position. I’m not sure I have faith or confidence in Ron Desantis any more. He could put a stop to this charade with one simple sentence: “I will not sign any more legislation until an open carry bill is brought to my desk. That includes shutdown of the Florida government.”

But he doesn’t do this.

The main reason I’m lifting prose out of this article at Bearing Arms is to point out yet another lie that they have bought.

Florida’s not anti-gun, though it’s not as pro-gun as some like to think. Still, getting open carry should be easy and yet, the fight is still going to be a rough one.

Efforts to pass open carry legislation in Florida are faltering, even with strong backing from Gov. Ron DeSantis. Senate President Ben Albritton, newly installed in his leadership role, has voiced opposition to the measure, aligning with concerns from law enforcement groups.

Albritton, a Republican, said last week he stands with the Florida Sheriffs Association, which has consistently opposed open carry policies.

“I trust my law enforcement officials, and that’s where I stand,” Albritton said, signaling little appetite for pushing the controversial measure forward.

Florida currently prohibits openly carrying firearms in public spaces, except in limited circumstances such as hunting, fishing or target shooting. That stance makes it one of only four states in the nation with such restrictions.

Gov. DeSantis has publicly expressed his support for open carry and suggested earlier this year that the Legislature could revisit the issue. The debate comes months after Florida adopted a permit-less concealed carry law, a measure DeSantis and other Republican leaders hailed as a victory for Second Amendment rights.

However, some gun rights advocates were disappointed that the bill stopped short of allowing individuals to openly carry firearms in public. Groups like Florida Carry argue the state’s refusal to expand gun rights further undermines constitutional freedoms.

“It’s a fundamental right that the state continues to deny its citizens,” said Richard Nascak, co-executive director of Florida Carry. “There’s no logical reason for Florida to lag behind the majority of the country on this issue.”

Then, Tom Knighton waffles and genuflects over a falsehood.

Albritton’s reason for opposing this is a big problem.

Look, I respect law enforcement as a general thing, but they’re also trying to do a job and they don’t like the idea of anything that makes their jobs the least bit more difficult. That’s understandable, but we also need to remember that we can find law enforcement groups who don’t really like Fourth Amendment protections on your vehicle or mobile device, either, because it makes things harder on them while trying to do their job.

No, and a thousand times no, that has nothing whatsoever to do with their reason for opposition. Oh, the LEOs are opposed because they won’t be “special” anymore. But LEOs are always opposed to open carry by anyone but them.

No, the real reason for this opposition in the senate is that they think this will hurt tourism. And the real problem Tom should be addressing is that this is all lies. It doesn’t hurt tourism. It didn’t in S.C. either. It doesn’t cause blood to run in the streets. It doesn’t cause LEOs to have more problems with doing their jobs. It doesn’t matter how someone carries their firearms. Peaceable men could have their firearm concealed and yet unholster it by the time LEOs arrive on the scene (like almost always happens) and LEOs still wouldn’t know who had carried openly and who had carried concealed.

That objection is literally a stupid objection crafted for people stupid enough to buy it.

Tom at Bearing Arms needs to think a bit harder.

Yet again someone has had to file an open carry bill for Florida.

A Labor Day weekend glass bottle attack of two Pennsylvania students wearing yarmulkes has prompted Rep. Randy Fine, R-Brevard, to renew his pledge to file legislation to repeal Florida’s “gun-free zone” for state college and university campuses.

Fine’s pledge comes in the wake of gun activists filing a federal lawsuit in South Florida to have Florida’s open-carry ban declared unconstitutional, and after Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican Legislature earlier this year eliminated a requirement for a concealed weapon permit to carry firearms in public.

Gunowners of America, which filed the lawsuit, said this year’s changes in Florida gun regulations did not go far enough and criticized DeSantis for not pushing for further expansion of Second Amendment rights.

Fine has stepped into the middle of the standoff between Second Amendment activists and Republican lawmakers.

GOA Florida Director Louis Valdes said open carry and campus carry top the group’s agenda for the 2025 legislative session.

But there is more. Here is a court complaint on open carry, and here is the default judgment after there was no response by the state.

But somehow with the awful controllers there in Florida, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this. I know what they’re thinking. They worry about their tourism income, but so did South Carolina (in the beach area) and yet they have seen no change whatsoever and no vapid, panicked phone calls to the police about a man carrying a gun.

We’ll see where this all goes. I will follow Florida open carry just like I always have. It’s one of the few states left with laws against open carry, and both the state legislature and Ron Desantis should be ashamed of themselves.

Eating crumbs that fall from the master’s table, like a stray dog.

Source.

Florida House Speaker Paul Renner is shooting down any hopes of Florida becoming an open-carry state, at least for now.

During last Thursday’s remarks to reporters, Renner said while he supports the idea of open carry, it would be unlikely to see a law get passed this year.

“I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment across the board in many aspects,” said Renner. “There’s not an appetite in both chambers to get that done.”

Renner’s comments come after Rep. Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, filed legislation to make changes to the state’s current gun laws, including allowing people to openly carry firearms on college campuses.

“We always have to measure whether it’s worth the committee [and] House floor time to pass a bill that would be controversial that would take a lot of time, that we know is dead on arrival.”

The bill(HB 1619), would also allow guns to be carried in certain government buildings and at voting polls. The proposal comes just a year after the state made it legal for most Floridians to carry guns without a permit, as long as it’s concealed.

It was the first bill submitted when they came back into session. They had plenty of time to work on it.  What a bunch of pusillanimous cowards and spiritless, lying scoundrels.

Cops are against it, and that would be enough for the bootlickers to stop the bill, but they enacted gun control in the wake of the Parkland shooting and they won’t reverse course now. They would be seen as the duplicitous punks they are. So along with NY, Hawaii, California and Illinois, the communists in Florida (you know, the “law and order conservatives”) have left it all in place and don’t even mind telling you they don’t care about it immediately after the bill was filed.

Here is more perspective.

Source:

Florida gun rights activists will have to settle for, at most, permitless carry this Legislative Session.

Source.

Lawmakers are poised to let Floridians carry guns, without the need for a concealed weapons permit. In a strange crossfire, though, the pro-gun bill is drawing heat from both sides of the battle over access to firearms.

So-called ‘constitutional’ carry advocates are angry because they want people allowed to openly display weapons, a step not allowed in the legislation. Supporters of more gun limits call it crazy to give more untrained Floridians the opportunity to wield guns.

But the delicately crafted ‘permitless’ compromise has the support of the Florida Sheriffs Association and other law enforcement groups, who balk at open carry. A question hovering: Will DeSantis sign a bill that doesn’t satisfy Second Amendment ideologues?

I’ve written on how this so-called “constitutional carry” bill is a farce, a phantom put forward by workers of magic and flim-flam artists.  I’ve also written DeSantis to tell him that no one will be happy with this outcome.

The progs will hate him for it, of course.  But this doesn’t appease those who want their liberty recognized by law.

No one wins.  It means nothing.  It’s worthless.

Will DeSantis sign it?

Readers know I have been closely following this issue.  Here’s an update on the Florida constitutional carry effort this session.

People who carry concealed weapons in Florida must complete a gun safety course, but that could change under a bill that has the backing of the state’s Republican leaders.

“Central to the idea of freedom is the right that we can defend ourselves against physical attack, as well as defend those that we love,” said State House Speaker Paul Renner last week after unveiling a proposed measure to allow “constitutional carry,” which would eliminate the requirement of a permit to carry a concealed firearm.

“All aspects of that permit would go away.”

The bill — HB 543 — would eliminate permitting requirements to carry a concealed weapon. Those include completion of a gun safety course and an attestation that the concealed carry permit is desired for lawful self defense.

If enacted, it would take effect on July 1.

At a press conference announcing the legislation, Renner expressed confidence that the measure wouldn’t pose a serious threat to public safety. “Anybody that’s a gun owner and uses guns knows that safety comes first.”

So this discusses the permitting scheme.  What about open carry?

The bill reads as follows.

… specifying it is not a violation for persons authorized to carry a concealed weapon or concealed firearm without a license to briefly and openly display a firearm under specified circumstances.

Oh, so they’re throwing bones to the dogs who want to openly carry to make them happy, but “the only ones” are the only ones who are permitted to openly carry their weapons.  “Briefly and openly.”  Your shirt or coat tail can accidentally go above your firearm and when the only ones come to arrest you because of that Karen-call down at the grocery store, you can plead for leniency because you really didn’t mean it, and they can take the statement of Karen versus yours and see what a prosecutor will do with it.  You can discuss it with the judge in court.

So they’ve queued up an abject failure as far as I’m concerned.  Open carry is an essential part of constitutional carry.  It isn’t constitutional carry if the state tells you how you must carry your weapons.  The job isn’t complete.  The job has been left undone.

As far as I’m concerned, they failed.  This is a cheap trick to persuade the citizens of Florida that they respect their God-given rights concerning weapons.

I’m not impressed.  I’m disgusted.  Pffft …

Source.

TALLAHASSEE (FLV) – Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida House Speaker Paul Renner said Florida will pass constitutional carry legislation.

DeSantis was asked at a press conference if his administration will be able to pass constitutional carry.

The governor responded and said “I’ll let Paul [Renner] answer that because I’m ready, so you guys gonna do it?”

“Yes,” Renner responded.

NEW: Florida House Speaker @Paul_Renner and Gov. Ron DeSantis say state will pass constitutional carry

Question: "Are you gonna be able to pass constitutional carry?"
DeSantis: "I'm ready, so are you guys gonna do it?"
Renner: "Yes." pic.twitter.com/KFAXDQw3Uj

— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) December 15, 2022

Let’s hope it happens this time, but another delay is highly possible given the weak state of legislative leadership in Florida.

I’m especially interested in seeing open carry legalized in Florida, as I know The Armed Fisherman is.  If we can get open carry, it won’t be necessary any longer to do stuff like this.

It’s my understanding that constitutional carry includes open carry, but if they don’t formulate the law this way, that is, if they formulate a bill that only removes the permitting scheme, this fight will have to continue.

Dan Reedy at Ammoland.

Recently while I was at Petco, a man walked in, and he was quite a sight to see. This man was in his late 50’s to early 60’s, in decent shape. He wore green Condor BDU pants bloused on his black 511 Tactical boots, a black 2A moto tee was tucked into his BDU pants. On his hip was an openly carried Springfield XDS, with extended magazine, jammed into a Serpa holster. He was buying some dog food.

Immediately after paying, his head dives into his smartphone like his neck is a wet noodle. I watch him as he exits, and he remains like this all the way until he gets into his new Chevy Colorado. The man is almost is (sic) struck by two vehicles on his way through the parking lot, with him completely oblivious to the world around him. Bad gun, bad holster, bad outfit, bad mindset. Classic. I’ve seen guys like him dozens of times and it’s always something painfully similar to this.

… open carry is often a sign of incompetence, and I almost exclusively advise people against the practice. I’ve never seen anyone publicly open carry with good equipment, nor with any serious amount of awareness or training.

[ … ]

Open carry doesn’t deter people from attacking cops, and they actually have some level of training to defend against that on top of holsters designed to defeat a gun grab. In addition to training and quality retention holsters, police can call for backup in a jam. I doubt many of you, if any, can say the same thing.

[ … ]

Open carry also presents issues outside of the gunfight. Now you’re alerting everyone to the presence of your firearm, threat or not. This means it is automatically in play in any defensive encounter, not something you can choose to reveal or continue hiding based on the situation at hand. With the gun openly displayed, you are now someone who can be dealt with quickly, instead of you waiting for your moment to counterattack.

[ … ]

Go get good training, read quality resources, and buy good equipment. If you don’t take my word for it, trust people like Greg Ellifritz, who has an awesome piece compiling over 60 recent examples of open carriers losing their guns or being killed due to carrying openly. He then goes on to link dozens of other articles where various experts like Massad Ayoob, Jeff Gonzales, and others give their opinions on the subject.

Dan has made about every mistake you can make in this article.  It’s difficult to know where to begin.

First of all, he displays a very off-putting and bigoted objection to the man’s chosen weapon, a Springfield Armory pistol.  I do not have a SA pistol, but I once did.  I traded it because I wanted a non-striker fired gun.  I only shoot hammer fired pistols.  But while I had it, it was reliable, accurate, trustworthy, and virtually indestructible.  You could have beaten it with a sledgehammer and it wouldn’t have changed a thing about its performance.  It would still be accurate and reliable.  I never had a failure in thousands of rounds.  His bigotry doesn’t do his argument any favors.  I hate it when others lampoon the possessions of others, whether weapons or something else.  I hate it.  He literally lost me with that statement.

Next, “open carry is often a sign of incompetence.”  He doesn’t really know that.  He just made it up.  This isn’t analysis, journalism, or anything else of value.

Next, he makes a hero out of cops who have had all of this “training.”  My wife and I were eating a dinner recently when we saw a cop directing traffic in the adjacent road.  She had to ask me, “How did he pass the test to qualify as a cop, and how does he even move, much less run?”  Of course, he doesn’t.  He probably weighed 350 pounds.  I’ve had a police captain from a major city in the U.S. tell me that most carriers – concealed or open – can shoot better than cops.  Cops normally qualify once a year and never get range time in between.  I’ve had another police sergeant tell me that they shoot striker fired guns because he would never trust his people to de-cock a hammer.

Give me a break with all the super-cop talk.

Next, he cites “examples” of open carriers who have had their weapons taken from them.  Well, then get a retention holster and do better at situational awareness.  There are also downsides to concealed carry, from being slower to presentation, to sweating your weapon (there are many more not listed here).  It’s all just a choice.

Besides, as many instances of both open and concealed carry that happen in America every day, I doubt that this number of situations where a person has had their weapon taken from them even moves the needle in terms of a statistical analysis.  Put another way, this small number of instances would constitute a statistically insignificant metric and I’m not the least impressed by it.

Next, I object to the notion that as a Christian man, I have some sort of duty to be the last one shot at because I want to plan my attack while I see women and children gunned down.  That’s obscene.

Finally, he cites Massad Ayoob.  Yea, he also advises talking to cops without the presence of an attorney.  I do not read anything he has to say.

But I will remark that this guy gets my vote (if I was a citizen in Florida).

An Escambia County man running for a commissioner seat was arrested on July 4 after officers found him openly carrying a prohibited gun and waving at people on a street corner, according to officials with the Pensacola Police Department.

Officers said Stanley McDaniels, 39, was standing on the corner of Baylen Street and Main Street waving at people for just over five hours. When officers approached McDaniels, they saw that he had a black gun in the waistband of his pants. Officials told McDaniels open carry was not allowed in the state of Florida and asked if he had any identification. McDaniels then pulled out his Florida Conceal Carry Permit and showed officers.

Officers noticed that McDaniels was holding a pamphlet and, when asked what it was, McDaniels told officers it was the Constitution. One officer said while he was having a casual conversation with McDaniels, he talked about all the work he had done within the community. McDaniels also had a camera set up on a tripod filming and he allegedly said he was going to take it to the Supreme Court.

McDaniels is running as a Republican for the Escambia County Commissioner District 4 seat, according to the county’s website.

Officers ran McDaniels criminal history and it came up with no results. An officer then removed the gun from McDaniels waistband which turned out to be a Beretta M9 with nine rounds in the clip and one in the chamber. All of the gun-related items were turned into the property management as evidence.

I admire his courage to challenge the idiotic law against open carry in Florida.

As for whether you carry openly or conceal your firearms, I couldn’t care less.  Make your own choice.  Unlike the author at Ammoland, I wouldn’t presume to know your situation or try to tell you what to do.

The gun community has its controllers too, and I object to controllers.

Source.

TALLAHASSEE — Incoming Florida House Speaker Paul Renner told a supporter his chamber would move a “constitutional carry” policy for gun owners in Florida in the next legislative session, according to a video surreptitiously recorded at a fundraising event last month and posted online.

In the video, which was filmed at a House GOP fundraising event in Ocala on May 17, a man pulls Renner aside and asks if expanding the right for Floridians to carry guns without permits would be a legislative priority.

“I can tell you, we’ll do it in the House,” Renner tells the man. “We need to work on the Senate a little bit.”

In an interview Wednesday, Renner said he didn’t know he was being recorded or who he was speaking with at the Ocala event, but confirmed the video’s authenticity. The Palm Coast Republican reaffirmed his support for “constitutional carry” legislation but said he didn’t call it a priority.

“The issue on constitutional carry is whether government should be playing a role in saying whether you can or can’t carry outside the home when you meet the basic requirements of being able to pass a background check,” he said.

In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis promised to deliver a bill allowing permitless carry before his time as governor was through. The support of Renner, who leads one of Florida’s two legislative bodies, would mean the policy would have significant momentum in the next legislative session.

Current Florida law requires handgun owners to obtain a license to carry their weapons in most public places. Open carry of weapons is mostly prohibited: Florida’s licenses only allow gun owners to carry guns concealed on their person. In order to get a concealed carry permit, a handgun owner has to take a training class that includes instruction involving the live firing of a loaded gun.

In other states, “constitutional carry” has allowed gun owners to carry their weapon without a permit — and thus without going through that training. Supporters call the policy “constitutional carry” because they argue the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms means Americans should be able to carry without the regulatory burden of obtaining a permit.

[ … ]

Passidomo on Wednesday pointed to Florida’s red flag law as a good balance between Second Amendment rights and protecting communities and schools. That law allows law enforcement to petition for a risk protection order if they believe someone is a danger to themselves or others. If a judge approves the order, firearms are removed from a person’s home. The process allows the person given the order to oppose it in court.

Luis Valdes, Florida state director for Gun Owners of America, who posted the clip of Renner to YouTube, said he planned to push for a permitless carry policy this legislative session. Valdes believes Passidomo will come around eventually.

“She is right now kind of being a little bit squishy on the issue, but I think with a little bit of political education, she would push the bill,” Valdes said in an interview Thursday.

For fighting the good fight in Florida for open carry, I recommend The Armed Fisherman.

And while some may disagree, I think this is the wrong order.  Florida police are far too arrogant and need their comeuppance.  We need to see people openly carrying in Florida.

When people get accustomed to seeing men carry weapons, and seeing that the sky doesn’t fall, then proceed to constitutional carry next.

I would be most dissatisfied with constitutional carry passed without open carry.

Where are the strong men in Florida?  Why is there no push to see this happen?  Florida apparently wants to be like Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Massachusetts.