{"id":69435,"date":"2021-07-02T12:04:11","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T17:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=69435"},"modified":"2021-07-02T12:04:11","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T17:04:11","slug":"69435","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=69435","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Signs Bill Allowing Congregants to Carry for Church Defense<\/a><\/p>\n

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation Tuesday allowing worshipers with concealed permits to carry firearms on their persons for church, synagogue, and mosque defense.<\/p>\n

WFLA\u00a0reported<\/a> that the bill, HB 259, applies to concealed carry permit holders and it took effect immediately upon being signed.<\/p>\n

ABC 7\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0the HB 259 also covers churches and other places of worship that have schools. Until now, there has been a prohibition on carry at such churches and\/or places of worship because of the school grounds.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota), who sponsored the bill, said: \u201cThere are always threats. And all we\u2019re doing is giving them, those religious institutions, the ability and the right to be able to say \u2018yes,\u2019 if we choose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to allow concealed permit holders \u2014 it\u2019s not the wild, wild West \u2014 we\u2019re giving one of the safest subgroups in our society the ability to carry,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Gary Farmer (D-Lighthouse Point) opposed HB 259, arguing it is built on the \u201cfallacy\u201d that a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy.<\/p>\n

Farmer said, \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been any Dirty Harry or John McClane or Rambo that\u2019s come to the defense of anyone in any of these mass shootings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are a few examples of good guys with guns stopping bad guys during the past seven years alone:<\/p>\n

Breitbart News\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that a concealed carry permit holder shot and killed an alleged Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacker on March 27, 2020, thwarting a mass shooting in the process.<\/p>\n

On December 29, 2019, the\u00a0Associated Press<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that a man opened fire on a Texas church congregation and was shot and killed seconds later by an armed congregant. Video from the incident showed congregant Jack Wilson shooting the attacker while other congregants closed in, guns drawn, to help end the attack as well.\u00a0ABC News\u00a0quoted<\/a>\u00a0Texas Department of Public Safety Deputy Director Joeff Williams saying, \u201cThe citizens who were inside that church undoubtedly saved 242 other parishioners. That might get swept aside in this whole conversation about active shooter response, and God know law enforcement has done a whole bunch of work to make our response better.\u201d<\/p>\n

On August 7, 2018, Fox News\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that a concealed carry permit holder was there to \u201csave countless lives\u201d when a gunman with bad intentions opened fire on a back to school event in Titusville, Florida. Fox 32\u00a0quoted<\/a>\u00a0Titusville police Sgt. William Amos saying, \u201cBased on the information that we\u2019ve gathered. This person stepped in and saved a lot of people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breitbart News\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0that an Uber driver with a concealed carry permit stopped a mass shooting in Chicago on April 17, 2015. The\u00a0Chicago Tribune\u00a0<\/em>reported<\/a>\u00a0the permit holder was in his car when he saw a gunman open fire on a \u201cgroup of people.\u201d The permit holder pulled his own gun and shot multiple rounds, striking the attacker three times and ending the mass shooting in the process.<\/p>\n

Breitbart News also\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that a concealed carry permit holder stopped a March 22, 2015, mass shooting in a Philadelphia barber shop. NBC Philadelphia reported that the gunman was shooting at \u201ccustomers and barbers\u201d when the permit holder intervened, shooting the attacker in the chest and ending the threat.<\/p>\n

ABC News\u00a0observed<\/a>\u00a0that Richard Plotts opened fire in a psychologist\u2019s office July 24, 2014, and his shooting spree was stopped by an armed doctor. Plotts was convicted for opening fire in Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby Borough, Pennsylvania.\u00a0Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan noted that Dr. Lee Silverman, the armed psychologist who ended Plotts\u2019 attack, helped prevent Plotts from reloading his gun to continue firing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More recently, on May 17, 2021, Breitbart\u00a0pointed to<\/a>\u00a0a good guy who used a hunting rifle to foil an alleged mass shooting in Fort Smith, Arkansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Signs Bill Allowing Congregants to Carry for Church Defense Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation Tuesday allowing worshipers with concealed permits to carry firearms on their persons for church, synagogue, and mosque defense. WFLA\u00a0reported that the bill, HB 259, applies to concealed carry permit holders and it took effect immediately … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,8,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-rkba","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69436,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69435\/revisions\/69436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}