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TALLAHASSEE — An emotional, three-hour showdown at the Capitol on Thursday featuring gun control advocates, open carry supporters and backers of a bill to allow permitless carry of concealed weapons in Florida ended with a high noon vote.
The Senate Fiscal Policy Committee voted 13-6 along party lines to repeal Florida’s concealed carry permit law and make minor changes to align the bill with the House version.
The next stop will be the full Senate, and the House version is lined up for chamber debate as well. Final passage could come as soon as next week.
Bill sponsor Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, said the bill makes it easier for law-abiding citizens to access their Second Amendment right to own and carry a gun by removing the “permission slip” currently required by the state.
Collins said the bill doesn’t stop businesses or other property owners from banning guns on their premises. It also doesn’t lift the ban on having guns on school or government property.
Neither bill contains what’s known as open carry, which would allow Floridians to carry their weapons in the open instead of concealed, something that gun-rights activists have been seeking for months.
Democrats and gun control advocates said the proposal will only increase the number of guns in Florida, a state with two of the worst mass shootings in history – the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland.
“I feel compelled to raise the bar on gun ownership, not lower it,” said Sen. Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton.
The state would lose a means of tracking guns, as well as eliminate the training that is required for obtaining a concealed carry permit under current law. When Collins said such training is minimal, Berman said that the solution should be to add training, not eliminate it.
“Let’s make it so people carrying weapons are not untrained and unvetted,” she said.
Sen. Linda Stewart, D-Orlando, said the bill would create a back door for folks whose applications were rejected, noting some 11,500 people failed to get concealed weapons permits in the past two years.
Other states that have open carry or permitless carry have seen gun crimes increase, Stewart said. Florida can’t afford to risk that since it is so tourist dependent. And Orange County is the center of the tourism industry.
“Let one or two of those shootings occur, and it will be all over the world news,” Stewart said. “It will have a huge impact on whether someone comes to Orlando or Miami.”
Collins said the bill wouldn’t stop criminals from getting guns, which raised questions about why the bill wasn’t going after aggressors or trying to get guns off the street.
Collins said people would still undergo a background check when purchasing a weapon and police would still be able to track weapons used in crimes. Berman also asked how law enforcement officers would be able to tell people with a legal right to carry a weapon from someone who does not.
Even though Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he would prefer to see an open carry bill on his desk, no committee member offered up an amendment to bring the bill in line with his wishes.
“It’s obvious that the Legislature has no intention to add open carry to this bill,” said Matt Collins, a former gun lobbyist turned citizen activist. “Adding open carry is low-hanging fruit. and there is no legitimate excuse for open carry not to be included. Open carry is a simple pro-gun clause that the vast majority of other states already have.”
Collins blamed the Republican supermajority in the Legislature for not having the courage to push for open carry.
“This inaction by the Legislature undermines the governor’s agenda, which, of course, hurts his chances in the upcoming presidential primary,” Collins said. “I like Governor DeSantis. but quite frankly the inability to get open carry included in this bill is embarrassing for him.”
More than 50 people, including high school and college students, signed up to speak on the bill, most of them opposed to it.
“I shouldn’t have to be here,” said Resli Ward, a student from Gainesville High. “My sister shouldn’t have to text her family ‘I love you’ when someone mistakes an umbrella for a gun. Children shouldn’t have to go to school every day in fear.”
Rain Johnson of Lakeland, where a deadly shooting occurred in February, said the U.S. Constitution guarantees a life of freedom and happiness. “That can’t exist if you’re afraid someone’s going to shoot us up.”
Florida would become the 25th state to have permitless carry if it becomes law. About 42 states have some form of open carry, including a handful that require open carry permits.
Florida is only one of a handful of states that still has concealed carry permits. DeSantis said earlier this week the state shouldn’t continue with that policy.
DeSantis also has said several times that he’d support open carry legislation. On the opening day of session Tuesday, he said he would sign whatever the Legislature sends him, acknowledging that open carry wasn’t in the cards this year.
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said she supports permitless carry because she respects the opinion of the Florida Sheriffs Association, which supports it. William Clark of the Libertarian Party of Florida said he thinks the sheriffs are behind the move to prevent open carry.
Other supporters of the bill include the Florida Police Benevolent Association, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce and several gun owner groups.
Even the National Rifle Association gave its endorsement.
“The NRA supports open carry as well as other provisions … but don’t believe we can get that this year,” said Art Thomm, a lobbyist for the NRA.
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Conspicuously absent from the debate were representatives for the tourism industry, most likely because they will still have the right to exclude anyone with guns from entering their properties.
Nonetheless, Sen. Victor Torres, D-Kissimmee, who represents a part of Osceola County near Disney World, said the company is extremely aware of the risk of guns.
“It’s a number 1 safety issue for them,” he said. “That’s why they have metal detectors to make sure everybody entering their parks are not bearing arms. They have tight security.”
As remote as the idea of a gunfight on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom might be, seeing an innocent scuffle in a crowded plaza or street turn into something tragic wasn’t beyond the scope of Berman’s imagination.
“This is a recipe for disaster, because if you step on someone’s foot and they have a gun you may end up in a horrible situation,” Berman said.
Sen. Alexis Calatayud, R-Miami, said a huge part of the bill that largely has gone unnoticed is the $60 million that would be funneled into school safety measures recommended by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission.
That includes $1.5 million for law enforcement to provide firearm safety, $1.2 million for the Department of Education to fund new and current positions in the Office of Safe Schools, $12 million to develop a statewide, cloud-based secure information sharing system for a threat management portal to be developed, and $42 million for schools to use to beef up their security.
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