By Lee Williams
There have been no Wild West-style shootouts. Floridians are not shooting each other over parking spots as some tediously predicted. No fistfights have escalated into gunfights, and most assuredly, the streets are not running red with blood.
On July 1, Florida became the 26th state – the majority state – to offer residents and visitors some form of permitless concealed carry. Since then, none of the gun-banners’ bloody, end-of-the-world predictions have come true – not one. Instead, what is happening in Florida mirrors what happened in 25 other states – nothing. Much to the consternation of the legacy media, bodies just aren’t dropping, despite their dire partisan predictions.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched one of the loudest and most parroted assaults on Florida’s new law in May after nine people were shot on the boardwalk in Hollywood, Florida, following a dispute between what the media described as “two groups of youths.” Newsome blamed the carnage on Florida’s unlicensed concealed-carry law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in April. Newsome claimed the law removed requirements for “background checks, instruction, training and oversight.”
“Until our leaders have the courage to stop bowing down to the NRA and enact common sense gun safety this kind of senseless violence will continue,” Newsom said in a tweet.
Unfortunately for him, the law hadn’t taken effect yet, and the good governor got factchecked and ridiculed to death. Newsome wasn’t alone in his fact-free criticism.
“This is another dangerous and senseless bill that was passed by the state legislature with no thought of the safety and wellbeing of the general public. Not only does this bill make Floridians less safe, but it also increases acts of violence,” Cynthia Slater, president of the Daytona Beach/Volusia County NAACP, told the Daytona Times in May.
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a senior advisor at Giffords and former Florida congresswoman told The Guardian in April that Republicans were acting “shameful” by pushing the bill.
“We are one of the largest states in the country, where we have seen two of the worst mass shootings,” Mucarsel-Powell told the British newspaper. “And we have to continue to do the work to make sure that we protect the lives of Floridians.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said DeSantis’ signing the bill into law was the “opposite of common sense (sic) gun safety.”
“It is shameful that so soon after another tragic school shooting, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a permitless concealed carry bill behind closed doors, which eliminates the need to get a license to carry a concealed weapon,” Jean-Pierre said. “The people of Florida, who have paid a steep price for the state and Congressional inaction on guns from Parkland to Pulse Nightclub to Pine Hills, deserve better.”
A Baldwin weighs in
Alec Baldwin’s younger brother Billy, who some believe is the least intelligent of the four Baldwin brothers, shared his views in a tweet Monday.
“Florida passes concealed carry law this week. It’s like the Wild West down there now,” Baldwin tweeted.
As stated, the law was passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. DeSantis in April, not this week. And how Baldwin, who lives in Santa Barbara, California concluded that Florida has become “like the Wild West” is not known.
“How many American and Canadian tourists will no longer winter in Florida because they don’t feel safe,” Baldwin asked. “How much tourism revenue will Florida lose due to DeSantis’s new ‘Shootout at the O.K. Corral’ law?”
Takeaways
I certainly don’t speak for all Florida gun owners. In fact, I only speak for one gun owner – me. However, I’m reasonably certain that no one in the Gunshine State would ever listen to anyone related to Alec Baldwin, given his tragic history with guns.
Florida’s unlicensed concealed-carry law is the most significant restoration of our gun rights that we’ve seen in decades. It will reduce crime because it levels the playing field by making it easier for law-abiding Floridians to carry a defensive firearm.
It’s not perfect – there is no provision for open-carry – but every pro-gun group in the state is dedicated to forcing open carry through the Republican-dominated state legislature as soon as we can.
The bottom line: Florida’s unlicensed concealed-carry law is working as intended. The legacy media and talking heads should correct their stories and admit they were wrong. And Billy Baldwin should remain in California and limit his social media posts to topics he understands, if there are any. Besides, us Southern men, and women, don’t need him around, anyhow.
Lee Williams is a board member of Florida Carry, Inc.
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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched one of the loudest and most parroted assaults on Florida’s new law in May …”
… and CA leads the nation in mass shootings. Why is that?
Liberalism/Progressivism are a mental illness.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-child-killed-grandfather-injured-dispute-jets-skis-erupts-gunfire
This sad and inexcusable tragedy had nothing whatever to do with the new concealed carry law… typical gun-grabber disingenuous disinformation. We can hope that the perps here get sent far, far away- fire up Old Sparky…
Did they get a ghetto shootout permit before the incident?
Otherwise it’s illegal.
Darn it! I wanted to see what a river of blood looked like.
All these years, each time a state went to permit-less carry the anti-gun made these claims, never came true.
Not one huh??
https://www.fox13news.com/news/7-year-old-shot-and-killed-on-courtney-campbell-causeway-in-tampa-police
yep not one.
not one of the wild west rivers of blood claims has come true.
what you link, the incident is horrible and no one is saying its not but it is not related to permitless carry. its a result of stupid. there is no such thing as a permitting law that will prevent stupid, if there were Chicago would be the safest place on earth and criminals shoot people there on a regular basis.
DUI drivers with a valid driver’s permit kill multiple thousands annually, its stupid but even then still no rivers of blood.
The fact is that criminals have always had permitless carry, yet you seem unconcerned for the thousands of defenseless by government decree innocents they injure or kill annually.
My uncle said he seen the river Rhine run red with blood back in ww2
“Not one huh??
https://www.techhive.com/article/1981362/hollywood-screwed-up-on-streaming.html?huid=53a658fe-a912-4334-a38c-72107e012e43”
Asking for a friend….
How does “one” amount to a river?
Actually, “not one” is in regards to states, not incidents. But it would be helpful to understand how “one” is equal to a river.
Thanx.
The article is very clear.. It says NOT ONE!!
I simply proved that to be incorrect…
@Ralph Humphrey
“The article is very clear.. It says NOT ONE!!
I simply proved that to be incorrect…”
No, you showed that you are ignorant as to what ‘context’ means.
why so raycisss?
that’s just mutual cultural combat.
embrace the beautiful cultures.
… me too, then we could follow Blood River on a map and locate Capitalvania that lil ‘d is always ranting on about. I’m beginning to think that it only exists inside of his empty nutshell cranium.
There really IS a (at least one) Blood River, Ive been on it…
If this was the Wild West? Then we could start killing criminals dead on-site. When we catch them robbing. raping, stealing, murdering, breaking into or vandalizing property. We wouldn’t need to call the police or the sheriff.
And I wouldn’t need a lawyer. All need to do is bury the dead criminals body. Next to all the others I had to kill.
got sumpthin’ agin’ buzzards?
There has always been permitless carry. The crooks never got a permit.
“The legacy media and talking heads should correct their stories and admit they were wrong.”
you funny guy, thankyou.
that goofball cream jeans pee airmakes me long for circleback pisshockey.
as far as gravel knew some goes he should be stuffed with foie gras until ~his~ liver is distended and then set upon by whatever wild beast prefers that sort of thing. i don’t know, harpy sound good… help me out.
Maybe it’s Blood Lite.
Hehehe! Neal…😎
Heard the same junk from politicians and others who are power hungry here. Meanwhile back in the real world it’s business as usual
The media pushed the same rhetoric when shall issue passed decades ago. We all got up the next morning and couldn’t tell the difference. And the day after that, and the day after that…until the crime rate began to drop. Then we noticed. Except the media. They didn’t notice a damn thing.
Now armed criminals in FL will no longer have the upper hand by way of a former state law that supplied them with an endless supply of defenseless citizens.
If you are not in a Concealed Carry State then Conceal Carry Anyway…Lots of sickos out there like the clown shown on this site demonstating his dislike for firearms by beating his shotgun to pieces…a blinking neon sign that says he would like to do the same to your firearms and to you too if you refuse his insanity. And then you have the under the influence of Gun Control trans terrorist who demonstated the need for Gun Control by running around killing and maiming people.
Whether you and yours live or die is up to you and not a bunch of gun hating pompous ivory tower democRats who will be no where around to help should you and yours be cornered by a criminal…Guaranteed.
I’ve been caught twice with concealed weapon and no permit. When I protested in court about my 2AMMEDMENT Rights it didnt matter. The law only follows the law when it benefits them.
Luckily this state went constitutional carry before I got caught a 3rd time, that’s the charm.
The system sees all gunm owners as outlaws, they just have legal outlaws and then they’ve got felons.
“Since then, none of the gun-banners’ bloody, end-of-the-world predictions have come true – not one.”
Might want to edit that out. A child was shot in the head over a jet ski argument on July 4.
Why?
That was two groups engaged in mutual cultural combat.
No permit has ever been required for that behavior.
Hardly “rivers of blood”… unlike Baltimore, Chicago, Ft. Worth, DC, Philly… Which WAS the actual gun-banners “predictions”… There were actually FEWER shootings in FL this 4th of July weekend than most regular weekends and definitely fewer shootings STATEWIDE than in cities like Baltimore, Chicago or Philadelphia… I spent the weekend riding around Central Fl from coast to coast and did not see even a trickle of blood in the streets… More children were killed in auto accidents in FL this past weekend than by morons with guns…
ralph…If you do not want to look like the typical busy body, foot tapping, dictatorial azzhat fixated on getting firearms then Do Not attempt to mix the clear criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. in with the legitimate use of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, vehicles, etc.
Thank you. I was waiting for someone to shut him up.
good luck with that. y’all encouraged it to repeat itself (as “nick”) 55 times on the last broward coward article.
put a quarter on your tonearm, the needles stuck.
That triggered some memories…
The law still prohibits unlawful carry.
Your incident was unlawful carry and use.
What is your malfunction?
If that is your logic, you must be an idiot.
The anti’s just adopt the butterfly effect concept.
Permitless carry in FL means more people will be shot in Chicago.
When press conferences are held and a politician or political police chief trots out the old “iron pipeline” nonsense I always wait for the real reporter in the room to ask “while there are just as many if not more guns in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Montana, etc… what makes the population of your city behave so differently?”
Trouble is if you ask that all other factors get dismissed because obviously you must be racist and since all other factors get dismissed and you’re racist they just fall back on the old “it’s the guns” and “somebody else brought them here.”
In another thread Miner asked “why?” but since he’s a disingenuous troll he never posited any answers and I guarantee if he did, like his fellow travelers, they would all be ephemeral, existential boogeymen that are conveniently immune to any policies, practices or plans of action other than paying for his healthcare and student loans so he’ll have more cash on hand for fleshlights and weed. The wars on drugs, crime and poverty have been failing for a century now. The war for education has apparently been given up on entirely as test scores and workplace readiness continue their precipitous and unabated fall.
We all know that doing anything tangible about any of it is just -ist and -phobic so we’re all better off living as mental patients in an open air asylum with no rights to speak of.
Billy Boy should restrict his “Wild West” remarks to subjects with which he is presumably more familiar – like his brother’s movie productions.
Let’s keep things in perspective. “Constitutional carry” is nothing more than state (national precinct) legislation, highly dependent on demographics of voters (or skill of manipulators). Fla is a victory, but….
Keeping a republic is always a near run thing.
I didn’t know possible to be a “dumber Balwin”.
“I didn’t know possible to be a “dumber Balwin”.”
Not quite following your line of thought, here.
Maybe: “I didn’t know (it was) possible (for there) to be a “dumber Baldwin”?
Just a guess…
I fully expect them to go bananas on any shooting that does happen, just to ‘prove’ their predictions…
yep, they will again start pushing the false logic lie of ‘coorelation = causation’. That troll ‘Ralph Humphrey’ already tried it in this comment section.
Northern men don’t need them around, anyhow- nor western men, either… Baldwin- ALL of them, should go back to England where they can feel safer and fit in better… Oh and take 3/5ths of the Cali population with them. Surely the Brits would welcome them!
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And as the months go by,
the violent crime rate will go down.
and the number of living breathing bad guys will too.
And the stats will prove that this works.
Bravo Florida
Yeah they always say that. And it never occurs.
The old saying that an armed society is a polite society is true, at least from my experience. When i would go into a certain hardware store the manager was a very unfriendly person and you couldn’t get waited on if you needed help. Now , when i walk in with an open carry 357 magnum on, i get waited on quickly by a bunch of friendly people. Never do see the manager. I make it a point to be friendly and smile and say thank you. This buisness is not in the town where i live.
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched one of the loudest and most parroted assaults on Florida’s new law in May …”
Newsom looks like he could suck start a Harley with an emty gas tank.
Funny how the antis cite to the Parkland and Pulse night club mass shootings without stopping to consider that neither involved a concealable firearm.
Until open carry is “authorized” I will not call this constitutional carry and I will still feel like we all got duped. It’s 100 degrees today. Open carry would be a Godsend. The FL legislature is packed full of RINOs.
We have the same issues here in Texas, even the Lt. Gov. was against it but enough citizens of the Republic of Texas called our Rinos and said we would vote out every s o b that didn’t vote for the permitless carry with open carry attached.
Arizona had open carry but not concealed, until out governor pointed out all it took was a vest or shirt falling over a pistol to become a crime. Florida is the opposite, with an errant breeze making a CCW carrier a criminal.
on our journey to constitutional carry we had a similar thing, but reversed. Ours came in two stages. At first came shall issue. Then came permitless concealed carry, but oddly open carry wasn’t mentioned so one still needed a permit to open carry except in your car or on your own property or on the firing range. One day after the permitless concealed carry was ready to be presented it was pulled from consideration when a legislature page asked a representative about if it would be a crime to conceal carry without a permit but to accidentally expose the gun if say the wind blew a jacket open or you took your jacket off thus being open carry. A week later a rewrite was ready and that representative introduced a bill to make permitles carry legal for both open and concealed, and it passed, governor signed, and we became constitutional carry.
Pete, that’s incorrect. I read the bill, and the inadvertent display of a concealed firearm is not considered the crime of “brandishing” under this law.
It
621 is not a violation of this section for a person who carries
622 a concealed firearm as authorized in
623 s. 790.01(1)
624 to briefly and openly display the
625 firearm to the ordinary sight of another person, unless the
626 firearm is intentionally displayed in an angry or threatening
627 manner, not in necessary self-defense.
Correct.
It initially was a problem, but when pointed out the legislature corrected it.
We still have a ways to go, I hope open carry gets addressed in the near future…
No, they changed the law on “inadvertent showing” a few years ago…
More criminals will feel the fury.
Why do people think laws keep crooks from being crooks?
“Why do people think laws keep crooks from being crooks?”
Agree. Law is the root cause of all crime; no law, no crime.
possum because half the population are morons
Sam if we got rid of 70% of the laws, possibly more, there would be a lot less crime.
“Sam if we got rid of 70% of the laws, possibly more, there would be a lot less crime.”
Agree. 100% would be better. Let people sort things out on their own. Natural selection has been efficient and effective, long before the first law was pronounced.
I do like property and contract laws. It is nice to own property and hold people to their contractual word without resorting to force.
Laws that turn rights into government granted privileges, however, need to go.
“I do like property and contract laws. It is nice to own property and hold people to their contractual word without resorting to force.”
Understand. However…..
In the end, one possesses only those things and rights one can physically defend.
My white socks and the ankles they cover are still quite pale and dry since constitutional carry was approved here in OH a year ago. Sorry to disappoint the uber-bloodthirsty 2A opponents. Not.
Mr. Baldwin was essentially correct – Florida is more like the Wild West now. Ordinary homesteaders and shopkeepers can protect themselves and their property from bandits and murderers.
Nothing changed post-law, because nobody’s behaviors have changed.
Legal carriers still carry. Prohibited persons still carry.
It is nice that more good people will have the option to carry without asking the government for permission.
@MADDMAXX
“Maybe: “I didn’t know (it was) possible (for there) to be a “dumber Baldwin”?
Just a guess…”
I suppose.
Still not following, but that is unimportant these days.
@Ralph Humphrey
“The article is very clear.. It says NOT ONE!!
I simply proved that to be incorrect…”
Well then….you get a cookie.
“[B]ut every pro-gun group in the state is dedicated to forcing open carry through the Republican-dominated state legislature as soon as we can.”
Please tell me your top three but it sure isn’t the NRA, SAF, or FPC. They are opposed to Open Carry.
Hi Charles,
Long time, no see.
How is your case doing? Catch us up.
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