{"id":91495,"date":"2023-04-02T13:16:58","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T18:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=91495"},"modified":"2023-04-02T13:16:58","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T18:16:58","slug":"91495","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=91495","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Blast from the past: Anti-gunners recycle talking points from the 80s in response to Florida permitless carry<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1986, Florida passed \u201cshall issue\u201d concealed carry legislation, kicking off a decades-long trend across the country that has continued to this day. At the time, Florida\u2019s adoption of shall-issue language was a very big deal and a huge change to the \u201cmay issue\u201d status quo, and gun control advocates did their best to drum up the public\u2019s fears; predicting \u201cWild West shootouts\u201d over parking spaces and a descent into a dystopian hellscape. As the NYTimes\u00a0breathlessly reported<\/a>\u00a0in 1987 as the \u201cshall issue\u201d law took effect:<\/p>\n

Only Florida has a law \u201din which a license to carry a concealed gun is given by the state,\u201d said Sarah Brady, vice-chairman of Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based lobbying group. \u201dWe believe that this kind of decision should be made on a local level where people know one another rather than applying to a state office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney General Robert A. Butterworth noted this month that the law, passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in the spring, \u201dhas left the area of unconcealed manual possession of a firearms totally unregulated.\u201d<\/p>\n

This gap has created \u201dthe possibility of openly armed youth gangs hanging around street corners and gunmen parading through a shopping mall,\u201d the Attorney General wrote in a letter urging that the law be amended in the current special legislative session.\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201dIt was about time for Florida to have such a law,\u201d said Richard M. Manning, a National Rifle Association official who pushed for the legislation.<\/p>\n

He is counting the days until the law goes into effect Thursday. So too is Mrs. Brady and other gun control supporters, and they are worried about what will happen in Florida. Widepread weapons possession \u201dis not the best way to handle the increase of violence,\u201d said Mrs. Brady, whose husband, James S. Brady, the White House press secretary, was shot in an assassination attempt against President Reagan. \u201dWe are the only civilized nation in the world without a good gun law and we are the most violent in the West.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A funny thing happened after \u201cshall issue\u201d went into effect: crime dropped, and not just by a little bit. Between 1987 and 2019, Florida\u2019s violent crime and homicide rates declined by more than 50%, and the state now has around 2.5-million active concealed carry licenses. <\/strong><\/p>\n

But in the wake of the Florida legislature sending a permitless carry bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis, anti-gunners are dusting off their old arguments and once again deploying them in a campaign of fearmongering. Here\u2019s a portion of Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago\u2019s\u00a0hyperbolic response<\/a>\u00a0to the passage of HB 543 headlined \u201cPermitless carry and gun sanctuary cities. Visit Florida at your own risk \u2013 it\u2019s a blast!\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a state where people aren\u2019t required to register guns like they do cars or house alarms. There\u2019s no paperwork, no background check involved when gifting or privately selling guns. Only in gun shop and gun show sales do buyers undergo basic scrutiny.<\/p>\n

And now, not even first-time gun users will be required to learn how to use a gun, online or in a gun range, to carry a concealed gun around the rest of us.<\/p>\n

Their new right puts the rest of us at greater risk of dying as a result of their incompetence.<\/p>\n

The permitless carry bill, CS\/HB543, now heads to Gov. DeSantis, a fan of even worse, open-carry. He will be all too giddy to sign it into law. He was the bill\u2019s chief proponent, although, hypocritically so \u2014 the governor doesn\u2019t want guns at his events.<\/p>\n

Remember, he got caught asking the city of Tampa to ban firearms at his election party \u2014 and to take the blame for it so he didn\u2019t have to?<\/p>\n

DeSantis had nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistoric NRA Win: Constitutional Carry Passes in Florida,\u201d the organization boasted in a press release sent, in its own words, \u201cmoments\u201d after the vote. They\u2019ll shower DeSantis with funds for his likely presidential run.<\/p>\n

But for the safety at major events \u2014 like spring break in South Beach \u2014 the new law foreshadows new trouble.<\/p>\n

Although there\u2019s talk that it could be possible to fence in an event, call it a private party and prohibit guns \u2014 like at DeSantis\u2019 election event \u2014 \u201cthe gun law passed by the Legislature allowing concealed weapons with no permit or training will make 2024 in South Beach a nightmare,\u201d said Stuart Blumberg, a 77-year resident of Miami Beach and founder of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association.<\/p>\n

Agreed, said Michael Grieco, a former Miami Beach commissioner and ex-state Rep. , a criminal defense attorney who carries a concealed weapon: \u201cIt\u2019s just going to exacerbate the problem. I\u2019m a Democrat and gun-owner, and this bill passed scares the crap out of me. As a father who drives his kid to school every week,\u201d he said, pausing, \u201cnow anyone can just go buy a gun with only some nonsensical, lighthearted background check.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Umm, that was the case before HB 543 was approved by lawmakers.<\/strong>
\nThe bill doesn\u2019t make any changes to the purchase or sale of firearms. It simply states that those Floridians who would be eligible to obtain a concealed carry license can carry a concealed firearm without the need for a government-issued permission slip. All those prohibited from possessing or carrying a firearm today will still be forbidden from doing so when the law takes effect on July 1st.<\/p>\n

To opponents of Florida\u2019s permitless carry bill, it\u2019s the 1980s all over again. But while Florida was at the forefront of the \u201cshall issue\u201d movement almost 40 years ago, it\u2019s far from an early adopter of permitless carry. When DeSantis signs HB 543 into law, Florida will join 25 other states in recognizing the right to bear arms without paying hundreds of dollars in fees and costs to do so. None of the doom-and-gloom predictions from anti-gunners have come to pass in those states, and not one has seen fit to repeal its permitless carry law after deciding it was a mistake.<\/p>\n

In fact, I\u2019ve got a story that should put Fabiola\u2019s fears to rest. It comes from the constitutional carry state of Ohio; specifically the city of Toledo, which has not had a firearm-involved homicide since\u00a0early February<\/a>, when a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed inside his home. In fact, as of March 31st Toledo has only reported six homicides this year, well below where the city was at this point in 2021 and 2022, before constitutional carry took effect. The true number is likely even lower; one incident involved a man shot and killed by Toledo police, another fatal shooting is probably going to be ruled a justifiable homicide given that it was a burglar who was shot, while the family of the 15-year-old says he was the victim of an accidental shooting and not an intentional act of violence.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not exclusively crediting constitutional carry for the plunge in homicides. Crime is complicated, and there are undoubtably a number of factors at work. But it\u2019s clear that permitless carry, by itself, does not lead to an automatic rise in shootings or gun-involved murders any more than \u201cshall-issue\u201d concealed carry led to more crime in Florida in the decades after it was enshrined into law. Most violent criminals aren\u2019t legally walking around with guns to begin with, so the new law will be of little note or use to them. What\u2019s most important is that law enforcement sticks to the\u00a0tactics and strategies<\/a>\u00a0that are most effective in reducing violent crime; focusing on the most violent and prolific offenders instead of casting a wide net of gun control laws over the general public.<\/p>\n

The current doomcasting over Florida\u2019s permitless carry law is nothing more than a rehash of decades-old arguments that have been proven false time and time again. The attempts to scare the pants off the public will only intensify between now and July 1st, but gun owners should keep calm and look forward to the day when they can carry on their person without having to get a permission slip from the state beforehand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blast from the past: Anti-gunners recycle talking points from the 80s in response to Florida permitless carry In 1986, Florida passed \u201cshall issue\u201d concealed carry legislation, kicking off a decades-long trend across the country that has continued to this day. At the time, Florida\u2019s adoption of shall-issue language was a very big deal and a … 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":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91495","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=91495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91496,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91495\/revisions\/91496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}