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A reader writes:

Yesterday, March 7, 2017 was the first day of the Legislative Session for Florida and with that two 2nd Amendment related bills were up for debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The same committee where Open Carry and Campus Carry were killed last year by then Republican Committee Chair Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla. As you know, there has been on ongoing issue this year in that same committee. This time with two Republican Senators . . .

Senator Anitere Flores, the Florida Senate’s President Pro Tempore. She’s the second most powerful Senator under the Senate President, Joe Negron. The other is Senator Rene Garcia (above).

The two bills up for debate were SB 616 and SB 646.

SB 616 was about Guns and Court Houses. It would not have allowed concealed carry in the court, it simply would have allowed licensed permitted concealed carry holders to check in their gun with the police/sheriff stationed at the court. Nothing more and nothing less.

SB 646 would have decriminalized accidental exposure of a concealed firearm. It would have made it a $25 dollar fine to the Clerk of the Court and a non-arrestable offense.

Both bills were scheduled to be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee at 4pm. Myself and a number of Florida 2nd Amendment Supporters spent all day at the Capitol meeting with Senators that are part of the Judiciary Committee.

At 1pm we met with Senator Flores’ Office. We presented the facts and explained why SB 646 needed to be passed, especially after the unjust ruling from the Florida Supreme Court in Norman v State. Then we met with Senator Mayfield’s Office at 2pm.

Senator Mayfield’s Staff stated with no uncertain term that she supports SB 646 and she does not agree with the Court ruling in Norman v State. Mr. Norman lives in her district and she found it appalling to what happened to him.

At 3pm we met with Senator Garcia (above). With our group was a current FSU student that was raped on campus in 2014. She told Senator Garcia in person that she was raped on campus and then asked him if he would support Campus Carry. Senator Garcia flat out stated no that he will not support it. Senator was also asked if he’d support Open Carry and he said no.

At 3:30pm we then met with Sen. Steube to discuss SB 646 and of course the elephant in the room: SB 644 (Legitimate Open Carry) and SB 622 (Legitimate Open Carry).

We asked Sen. Steube if Senate President Joe Negron will use his constitutional authority to places these bills directly for a floor vote in the Senate and he stated that it does not appear that Senate President Negron will not do such an act.

We were unable to get word directly from Senate President Joe Negron. Also no word from the House on where their Pro Gun Bills are at the moment either.

We then attended the Committee Meeting at 4pm. The first 2nd Amendment bill to be heard was SB 616 (Courthouse gun check in).

During the debate. Sen. Flores openly stated that she will only vote for this bill because it is very limited in scope and she does not support Campus Carry, Airport Carry, School Carry, or Open Carry.

Senator Garcia then stated that he shares beliefs and supports Senator Flores’ statements and furthermore he then went on about mental health.

Senator Flores stated “I do not support guns on campus, I do not support having guns in airports and I do not support guns in school zones. I don’t support those things.”

Senator Garcia stated “I want to echo the sentiments Sen. Flores stated.”

I must say, Senator Debbie Mayfield stood strong in the opposition that is Senator Flores and her lackey Senator Garcia. Senator Mayfield said “I am one of those that believe it is a God given right for us to protect ourselves and to carry a gun.”

As of this point, Campus Carry and Open Carry is dead in Florida unless Senate President Joe Negron pulls these bills out of committee and move them directly to a floor vote.

Senator Greg Steube is fighting an uphill battle this year. Sadly, for a State under Republican control since 1996, it appears that once again Republicans are killing pro-gun Legislation by smothering it in the cradle via committee and worse it is being done by Senate President Joe Negron’s top lieutenant and the second most powerful person, Senator Anitere Flores.

Senator Flores was given a 100% A+ rating by the NRA in 2015 and the NRA endorsed her for her bid to run for Florida Senate in 2010.

Click here for a direct link to the one hour and thirty-nine-minute video of the Committee meeting. Below are the times when both turncoat Republicans show their true colors.

Sen. Anitere Flores1:26:48 – Questions Sen. Steube
1:30:55 – Start Again
1:33:00 – States she does not support any pro-gun bills
1:33:55 – States she does not support any pro-gun billsSen. Rene Garcia1:34:35 – Start Time
1:34:55 – Agrees with Flores
1:35:08 – Rambles on about mental health and guns

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45 COMMENTS

  1. “SB 646 would have decriminalized accidental exposure of a concealed firearm. It would have made it a $25 dollar fine to the Clerk of the Court.”
    If this doesn’t pass I’ll be more than disappointed.

    • These are the lower level stooges who take the blame from the gun folks. The problem is the entrenched leadership and lobbyists/special interests. That part of the sewer can’t be voted out.

      • Then we vote out those who can. Once those elected discover that listening to the lying douchebag lobbyists will get you FIRED, the lobbyists can pond sand.

  2. It doesn’t matter. Flores is term limited in 2018. The thinking is that she went turn coat because she wants to run for Mayor of Miami. Gun owners were used freely in November and now we’re being discarded like so much used tissue paper. People wonder why I left the Republican party?

    • Leaving the Republican Party will solve nothing.

      The real solution is to hold Republican politicians accountable to the party platform. That may mean getting involved in primary elections, sacrificing time and money for challenger candidates, maybe even running for office yourself.

      Sorry, but real solutions require actual effort.

  3. As a long time Florida resident…Gee….I’m just SHOCKED at this. Once again screwed by Republicans who PROMISED AND PROMISED “Oh, just elect us and we’ll get it done this year!”. But as soon as they were elected Negron and his cronies started backpedaling. You could tell from his lack of enthusiasm, etc that these bills were DOA now that he and the Republicans got what they wanted out of the NRA, etc.

    Negron is an NRA A+ rated legislator….he names Senator Anitere Flores as President Pro Tempore….why the hell did he do that? I don’t believe for a SECOND that Negron didn’t know her view on such an important issue like these gun bills. Negron KNEW these bills would be front and center this year. The only explanation is he wanted her there to kill them. To do his dirty work. So he can say, “Well, I tried but that dang Flores killed the bill!”. And Flores won’t suffer politically because her distinct is obviously not that pro gun. It’s freaking pathetic because this is the EXACT SAME THING that happened last year…..right down having a Republican fall guy on the committee.

    Watch the video and listen to her speak…..does she sound educated? Does her positions on guns sound anything like an supposedly NRA A+ rated person? How does someone who sounds almost like Hillary Clinton on guns get this spot?????

    Also…how the hell does the NRA give these two A+ ratings!? What did they do….answer one questionnaire promising the moon before he election? This whole rating process by the NRA needs to be completely changed. It will be interesting to see if they have the balls to call these two traitors out and pull their ratings immediately. If they don’t I’ll be canceling my NRA membership as it’s meaningless.

    And i love the one bill they seem to agree on…Courthouse carry. How is that a big important issue? Why do they focus on that? How many people actually even go into a courthouse on a regular basis? How does this help the average Florida gun owner? They’ll waste time and effort on that but not something like Open Carry which could be used by everyone. Oh wait…all these legislators are lawyers so it helps out their lawyer friends.

    Kinda of how they seem to have the time for this http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/florida-cabinet-could-get-special-exemption-to-carry-concealed-guns-almost/2315748

    Yep….a simple phone call gets the Senate to make giving the Cabinet and fellow Legislators privileges that the average joe can’t get a TOP PRIORITY….gotta get that passed ASAP.

    Negron could put these bills on the floor anytime he wants..but like last year(and the year before that and the year before that) it will not happen.

    Two other points:
    1)This is why immigration and gun rights go hand in hand. From personal experience I can tell you the VAST majority of legal(and illegal) immigrants I’ve interacted with do not care about gun rights. They come from countries/cultures where the govt runs everything and nobody has guns. They are perfectly fine with that and bring that attitude with them here. Couple that with large amounts of people from anti-gun states like NJ and NY it’s only a matter of time before Florida goes blue and solid Democrat. If we can’t get these bills passed now we never will.

    2)This is the same thing that will happen at the national level. The Republicans will screw us as well. Trump could have done many simple things via EO and through his AG for gun rights but he hasn’t. If you think the Republicans in Congress are going to pass National CCW or the Hearing Protection act you are nuts. They can’t even kill Obamacare…..they won’t be doing anything for us.

    • @Jack Bremmer:

      How many people actually even go into a courthouse on a regular basis?

      I share your views, Jack. I’m only answering this one question, showing that it makes things even worse if the bill fails to pass.

      My local county general administration building contains a few courtrooms on a floor with several other govt offices. The security checkpoint is located such that you need to go through it to get to any of those offices, court related or not. There is no “courthouse” as such but a big part of a general-purpose govt building is treated as one.

      • I appreciate your point. I know that for some people in some buildings this is an issue. It should be included in the general elimination of all Gun Free Zones. However, I did a quick survey of roughly a dozen people yesterday asking them the last time they’ve been in a courthouse. Only one can remember ever going into one and that was a person who server jury duty a few years ago.

        This bill is both a payback to lawyer friends and also a meaningless bone to throw to the NRA. “See…look..we did do something.”

        Same old games with Florida. Can’t wait to get outta this third world hell hole

  4. “Sadly, for a State under Republican control since 1996, it appears that once again Republicans are killing pro-gun Legislation by smothering it in the cradle via committee and worse it is being done by Senate President Joe Negron’s top lieutenant and the second most powerful person, Senator Anitere Flores…”

    Those two thoughts are related. The republicans that have gotten entrenched there for decades believe- probably rightly- that they can do whatever they want and they won’t face opposition. Because, geez, we better vote for those guys or else the democrats will get in and be bad on the gun issue!

    • This is exactly why we can’t let gun rights be strictly a Republican thing. It has to cross demographics even politically; You get aligned too far to one side they take you for granted.

  5. God, our two party system is broken. When both groups want to screw you on the same issue, what do you do?

    • There’s a similar common thread in California as I recall, also (and New Mexico, and Arizona, and Nevada, and San Antonio, and…) Culture is a very real thing, and dislike of real civil rights and faith in the state to run our affairs is a big part of life in areas south of here. And east of here, and north of here, and especially west of here.

      • I’ve been banging on this here at TTAG for years now.

        Politics is downstream of culture. There is only one culture in the entire world that conceived of individual rights as pre-existing one’s own existence, and that was the northern European Protestant culture, and even more specifically within that cohort, the ideas and ideals coming out of the time of the Scottish Enlightenment and their counterparts in England. The southern Europeans had few ideals we’d recognize in the US Constitution, even with all the political philosophy handed down to us from the peak of the Roman Empire. The Greeks had only a whiff of it.

        If we imported (eg) half of Venezuela’s population today, most of them would vote for socialism all over again, even as they’re seeing the inevitable results of doing so in their own country. It’s their culture, and leftists keep telling themselves that the idea will work, they just “need to implement it correctly.”

        We shouldn’t import large numbers of people from failed societies, because once our immigration rate outstrips our ability to assimilate and re-educate the immigrants, you get what you see today in California: leftists running a state clear into the ground – not just about guns, but their fiscal policy will collapse them as well.

        • Mr. Bolivar had some interesting things to say on this topic. It’s nicely summed up, as is quite a bit of other history of that area of the world, fairly early on in Civilization: The West and the Rest.

          There’s a reason Venezuela uses the Bolivar.

        • “If we imported (eg) half of Venezuela’s population today, most of them would vote for socialism all over again, even as they’re seeing the inevitable results of doing so in their own country. It’s their culture, and leftists keep telling themselves that the idea will work, they just “need to implement it correctly.” ”

          Which just goes to prove that one definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again, fully expecting to get different results every time”

  6. We need to start a Second Amendment Abuse registry where we publicize the work and home addresses of gun rights violators and their spouses (not children).

      • Finally! Someone else! I got tired of commenting every time I see this jerkwad post, about how he uses the name of a Nazi apologist and the symbol of the Hungarian Nazi Party. Kinda surprising he spends as much time on a site run/owned by a jewish man.

      • I’m glad I wasn’t the only one I noticed his profile pic wasn’t just a normal cross or something like that.

      • Aaaaw, look at all these triggered little daisies.

        This is an open space, you’ll find people with opinions or profile pictures you don’t like. Surprising, I know. If you’re going to get butthurt over stupid crap you might as well go the whole nine yards and sell all your guns, donate to Bernie Sanders, wear broad rimmed glass and start hitting up the local coffee house because you’ve already got the attitude of a hipster douchebag.

        I mean seriously, y’all could’ve just ignored him or even reported him to the TTAG admins but nope you can never pass up an opportunity to virtue signal, amiright?

  7. Senator Flores stated “I do not support guns on campus, I do not support having guns in airports and I do not support guns in school zones. I don’t support those things.”

    Yeah, and who is going to obey those laws and who will be disobeying them? I think we all know the answer to that.

    That is the irony of it all. The people that will be dutifully unarmed will be exactly the people you hope are around armed when the unlawfully armed go into full berzerker mode. Sigh. Shakes head.

    • She and her friends don’t have to worry about that….there’s a bill being introduced that gives them full rights(the same as cops) to carry everywhere all the time.

    • Gun free zones are buffets for mass murderers.

      stupid pols “don’t suppport” guns in certain places, but that doesn’t do jack sh*t to prevent psychotics or jihadis from taking guns into those places.

  8. Having your gun become unconcealed is an offence in Florida which the state actually wastes resources arresting people on?

    Well, that’s dumb enough that I say “No more tourist dollars for you.” You’ve been added to the list.

  9. We just evicted a legislator (who was also a woman) who had rather powerful position in the Wyoming legislature who had a similar record on gun bills. The new person who primary’ed her didn’t do much campaigning – he just sent around a sheet of paper with a spreadsheet of all her votes through the years on high-visibility bills. Stacked back-to-back, she clearly wasn’t a Republican, never mind being anti-gun in actual votes while talking a big game in press appearances.

    Gun owners are feared by pols because we don’t forget, and never forgive. Back up that perception with action, and you will be feared.

  10. House, Senate, and Governor’s mansion since 1999. Precious little to show for it. It’s why I am proud to say I am NOT a Republican. I don’t have the battered wife syndrome.

  11. If it’s got an R next to it’s name and it’s a woman, you got a 75% chance of it being anti-gun. If you support the 2nd, stop voting for Republican women people.

    • It isn’t just Republican women. It’s pretty much any women, and in any country.

      In Switzerland, they’re having assaults upon their right to keep arms, and it is increasingly coming from female politicians.

      Annie Oakley looks utterly prescient today.

  12. Once I realized how worthless NRA ratings are, I quit paying my dues. If this is what an A+ looks like then they’re simply wrong.

  13. “he stated that it does not appear that Senate President Negron will not do such an act.”

    That’s kind of an awkward statement. Leaves me unsure what it means. But then maybe that’s the whole point.

  14. “Senator Flores was given a 100% A+ rating by the NRA in 2015 and the NRA endorsed her for her bid to run for Florida Senate in 2010.”

    of course they did.

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