Background
Thirty years ago in 1987, the Florida Legislature caved into the hysterics of then Miami-Dade State Attorney Janet Reno, and during an unrelated emergency budgetary hearing, made open carry of firearms illegal under penalty of fine and imprisonment. To gain support for their hasty and non-researched decision, the legislators made promises to revisit the issue the following year. That never happened.
In 2011, SB 234 was considered by the Legislature. The bill would have restored open carry to licensees of the state. The bill passed all committees, but was scuttled on the Senate floor in favor of a vague "brief exposure" clause which would except in theory a licensee whose firearm had been temporarily exposed in a non-threatening manner. During the committee hearings, NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer commented that the only way to keep licensees from being arrested was to make open carry legal. How right she was. It is long past due this pointless restriction was repealed.
Only months later, Dale Norman was arrested at gunpoint on a sidewalk in Fort Pierce.
| |
| Dashcam video - Fort Pierce PD |
Charged with open carry in violation of 790.053 Florida Statutes, the court found the exposure of Mr. Norman's firearm was not "brief", and he had no protection of law. He was convicted. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.
Between 2011 and 2017, the issue of open carry restoration has been largely met with ambivalence and in some cases, outright hostility. In the rare instance a bill has actually been tendered, it has been scuttled by the Legislature. Two years ago, Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R) refused to allow either the open carry or campus carry bills to be considered by the Senate Judiciary committee, killing them. Last year, Sen. Anitere Flores (R) used the Pulse shooting as a rally point to garner support for a projected post-Senate run as Mayor of Miami. Never mind that both these turncoats had made promises to the voters to support gun rights.
Senator Steube is the leading advocate for our rights in the Florida Senate. Because of a lack of conviction and belief in the Second Amendment rights of Floridians, Senate leadership has failed to support Senator Steube's efforts to restore our rights. The draft bill that Sen. Steube filed in an attempt to get some relief for law-abiding gun owners retained criminal penalties for open carry if a Judge did not believe the exposure was temporary enough. The bill was ripe for abuse by law enforcement, and actually increased the probability of wrongful arrest of licensees. As such, Florida Carry OPPOSED this bill.
Senator Steube deserves our praise for his efforts and we must recognize that he was forced to file this compromise legislation because anything better would have been dead on arrival due to the anti-gun Republicans leadership put on his committee. But Florida Carry cannot support a bad bill just because it is the 'best we can do.' We must demand better and hold leadership accountable for their failure to give Senator Steube anything better to work with.
Florida Carry supported the original language of this bill. It simply required courthouses to provide a place where licensees could secure a lawfully carried firearm, rather than leave it unattended at home or in a vehicle. However only 24 hours before the committee hearing, several amendments were filed, including a strike-all. The strike-all made an attempt to incorporate the provisions of SB 148 and SB 274.
The language of the amended bill INCREASED the financial penalties for a first offense of "temporary" open carry by 10 TIMES from $25 to $250. Is this in recognition of licensees being the law-abiding lot they are? No, it was an attempt to appease anti-gun senators whose votes were needed because leadership failed to remove them from their committee assignment, even after these anti-gun senators promised to oppose future pro-rights bills.
Additionally, the strike-all amendment contained yet another poison pill - a provision requiring all NICS rejections to be turned over to law enforcement for investigation! Of the over 70,000 NICS rejections in 2016, a grand total of 447 were referred to prosecution, and of those, only 71 were found prosecutable. To put it in context, assumming the national numbers were applied to Florida, 16,000 people could risk an arrest and confiscation of firearms to catch 16 prohibited persons over the course of one year.
Needless to say, Florida Carry opposed this strike-all amendment.
Our position
The time for excuses is long past. Licensees were promised consideration in 1988, and have since been met with stonewalling and political hijinks. The opposition provides a litany of hypothetical results of open carry, everything from "police won't know who the good guy is" to the catch-all "wild west", and yet none of their dire predictions occur in the FORTY-FIVE states where open carry is lawful. Oddly enough, these same opponents made similar claims in 1987 when the legislature was debating statewide shall-issue licensing. In fact, both Oklahoma and Texas law enforcement officials claimed virtually identical concerns when their respective state legislatures were considering open carry legalization. Yet those same agencies now report open carry is a "non-issue", exactly how it would be here. THIRTY states allow unlicensed open carry, another FIFTEEN allow licensed open carry. But our Florida Legislature, the original body that created the Florida Concealed Weapon or Firearm License, apparently doesn't trust the licensees it created, despite the statistical evidence proving licensees to be SIX times more law-abiding than Florida law enforcement officers! Between 1987 and 2012, only 7/1000ths of 1 percent of all licensees lost their licenses due to a crime with a firearm! Licensees have upheld their part of the bargain, by being incredibly law abiding. It's time the Legislature recognized that documented fact.
More importantly, it is time that Republican leadership hold Republican legislators responsible when they do not follow the platforms of the Republican Party which state
"We support constitutional carry statutes and salute the states that have passed them. We also oppose any effort to deprive individuals of their right to keep and bear arms without due process of law." (Republican Party Platform 2016)
"We uphold the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, a right which antedated the Constitution and was solemnly confirmed by the Second Amendment. We acknowledge, support, and defend the law-abiding citizen's God-given right of self-defense."
"We support the fundamental right to self-defense wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal right to be."
"Gun ownership is responsible citizenship, enabling Americans to defend their homes and communities." (Republican Party Platform 2012)
Florida Carry is fed up with legislators who talk the talk in the primaries and fail to walk the walk in the Legislature. Florida Carry is fed up with legislators in leadership positions in the House and Senate who tout the (R) after their names, but fail to support the party platform. In short, Florida Carry is fed up with those who fail to live up to their promises. 
Posts
