Tampa Bay Times:
Hoping to override legislation that would relax existing state law by allowing concealed-weapons permit holders to visibly carry their weapons in public, the Florida Sheriffs Association announced its own measure Wednesday.
The proposal would protect concealed-carry permit holders from arrest if they accidentally display a firearm in public.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri — the FSA’s legislative chairman — says the measure clarifies Florida laws and diminishes the call to legalize open carry.
“The way we crafted this proposal is airtight and provides a fix,” Gualtieri said. “It states that no law-abiding, concealed-carry holder will ever face any sanctions for inadvertently exposing their gun.”
Gualtieri said the proposal is presented as an alternative to open-carry legislation bills and would help solve the “gotcha law” problem if someone’s gun was accidentally visible.
The proposal would require a person to intentionally and deliberately — “in a clear and obvious manner,” Gualtieri said — violate concealed-carry laws before they can be arrested.
The proposal also enforces a requirement that lets people explain circumstances surrounding their guns being accidentally exposed. If for some reason a concealed-carry holder is arrested, and it’s later proved their gun was exposed accidentally, the proposal calls for immediate expunction of the incident from their record.
“We don’t think it’s necessary to go from where we are today to full open carry,” Gualtieri said.
“The purpose of this is to solidly protect concealed-carry holders — I fully support everyone’s right to (lawfully) concealed carry. … We’re offering a solution so that people with concealed-carry permits aren’t going to get in trouble for something they shouldn’t get in trouble for.”
First, law enforcement has absolutely no business advocating one law or criticizing another. It isn’t any of their business, any more than it’s the business of, say, the local utility to weigh in on whether something like open carry should be legal.
Second, accidental exposure of a weapon isn’t the only problem associated with open carry. In a hot state like Florida, there are other reasons for open carry, like sweating your weapon when you are carrying IWB, rubbing your flesh raw when walking with IWB carry, etc.
Third, as we’ve discussed many times before, as a [sometimes] open carrier who lives in a traditional open carry state, the problems law enforcement allege to exist with open carry simply do not obtain. They’re misleading you. It isn’t the big deal they say it is, and blood doesn’t run in the streets.
Fourth (and this is perhaps the saddest thing we learn from the report), accidental exposure of a weapon is indeed an issue, and the Florida Sheriff’s association knows it to be so. That’s the only reason they have proposed this as substitute legislation. They want to placate weapons carriers, and they know that wasting court time for a shirt lifting in the wind is silly. Thus, they’ve been down this road before. They know all about arresting people for silly accidents that have no affect on anyone.
And they waited this long to do anything about it, and only proposed this law in an attempt to deflate open carry rights. How disgraceful. How absolutely contemptible.
