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Courtesy FL Senate

The fate of the open carry and campus carry bills in Florida now rest in the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami. bizjournals.com reports that the two bills may face unequal fates . . .

The chances might be better that the Senate Judiciary Committee will look at allowing Floridians to openly carry sidearms [rather] than moving forward with another proposal that would allow guns on state university and college campuses.

Judiciary Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said he and committee staff members continue to review the high-profile proposals, which would apply to people who have concealed-weapons licenses.

Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando has asked Portilla to move expeditiously. The Florida Police Chiefs Association seems to be on board, with minor reservations, and the Sheriff’s Association has been against the proposal, with some Sheriff’s supporting it.

Most of the opposition seems to come from people crying “blood in the streets,” though they have a difficult time explaining why it hasn’t happened in 45 other open carry states. From yourobserver.com:

Consider, too, these facts, courtesy of Rep. Steube: “After 28 years of data in Florida, licensed conceal-permit holders are six times less likely to commit a crime than law enforcement officers. Specifically, permit holders only commit misdemeanors and felonies at a rate of .0002% annually.”

Open carry has most of the advantages of police officers for stopping violent crime, and none of the disadvantages of police officers acting as revenue agents for the state on victimless activities.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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32 COMMENTS

  1. Actually. Watching the committee hearings on it. Most people think it looks bad in regards to Florida’s most important business – tourism.

    • Is it the Senate Committee that you are watching? The disarmists had the same tired arguments about concealed carry.

      Remember how the disarmists tried to scare off tourists from the “gunshine” state.

      Totally backfired on them. Crime went way down in Florida. And that is good for tourism.

      I would go to California a lot more often if it were not for their insane, extremely restrictive gun laws.

      • Crime in Florida against out-of-state slash out-of-country tourists nosedived when the State of Florida did one simple brilliant thing. (But *not* ‘One Weird Trick’)

        The thugs were targeting drivers in rental cars because rental cars had a license plate identifying the car as a rental, by the numbering scheme.

        Rental cars license plates are now indistinguishable from private car license plates.

        Attacks on tourists plummeted.

        The People gave ‘A Great Cheer’.

        • Rental cars license plates are now indistinguishable from private car license plates.

          Which means that the thugs can no longer distinguish between unarmed tourists and armed Floridians.

        • “Which means that the thugs can no longer distinguish between unarmed tourists and armed Floridians.”

          Smells like a *win* to me, Ralph. 🙂

      • I have been watching both the Senate and the House bills through their respective committees. My preference is that the FL supreme court rule in favor of Open Carry in Norman v State as there would not be a requirement for CCW license. While there were a few blood in the street comments. Most were concerned on how it would look to tourists on I Drive (international drive in orlando) to tourists who see floridians exercising their rights.

  2. Tourism?
    No worries, the House of Mouse in Whorelando will guarantee an entertainment venue free of legally carried firearms.

    • Walt Disney World employs a *lot* of multi-cultural people in their theme parks, if you get my drift.

      They better pray they haven’t employed a radicalized Jihadi.

      Imagine the horror if someone in official Disney corporate garb with a name tag that reads ‘Ahmed’ suddenly opens fire on Disney’s Main Street.

      The optics will be worse when the inevitable smartphone video leaks out.

      • It doesn’t even have to be firearms related. Horrible as it is to contemplate, how about images of Minnie Mouse or Pluto in a crowd of infidel children when their concealed suicide vest detonates.

        • …or just starts groping people/children, since that’s never happened before. The truth is, though, that if there are places in the US so bottled and gun free as to resemble a Kenyan Mall, a Mombai hotel, or Russian theatre…it’s a section of a Disney theme park.

          I dunno, maybe all the Goofy’s will whip out concealed MP5s and win the day, I’m not up on Mickey’s security plans

  3. Florida is full of these dirtbag anti gun Republicans. Take Miami and Portilla and ship them to Cuba where they can have all the gun control they want.

    • Where’d they get that picture of Portilla, too? I’m guessing they pulled it from his self-submitted picture to votesmart.org. In reality, Portilla is in his mid-50s. That picture is about 20-25 years old and looks like something he’d post today on his match.com profile.

  4. Take Portilla and Miami and let Cuba have it. Then they can have all the “gun control” they desire. What a dirtbag.

  5. I sorry but I rather have the debate center on the right to carry on state university and college campuses. Having no carry is far worst than not having the choice between open and concealed carry.

    • I disagree for a variety of reasons. Just to name a few, campus carry will eventually come, the resistance I think is because two major universtiy presidents are against it and one is a former senator whose friends will be voting on the bill. There is also almost no outcry among students to carry, not least because the bill doesn’t really apply to anyone but visiting parents and grad students and anti gun professors. I feel that open carry is more governor dependent, and right now we have one who said he’d sign an open carry bill.

    • The “open carry” bill(s) is actually in regard to protectingg conceal carriers. conceal carriers in florida have been targeted by LEOs and State Attorneys when they accidentally and unknowingly expose their firearm. Despite a law that allows brief accidental exposure and printing. It never stipulated what is brief exposure. So people whose shirts rode up and exposed their firearm without knowing have been arrested for open carriering. Most dont make it to court. One (norman vs state of florida) has been appealed all the way to the florida supreme court. If that one succeeds, the OC bills in the house and senate are moot and unnecessary.

      • FLSC will never rule the OC ban unconstitutional. It’s an anti gun court and the Heller decision and the Fl’s constitution give them plenty of fodder to be dishonest with. They may throw us some bones if SB 300 becomes law though.

        • I am aware of that. They are the ones that ruined the brief display law. But one can hope. However it doesnt look likely as they denied an amicus brief request by Mississippi Carry.

  6. Dear Florida’s Gun Permit lawmakers:

    Please make non-resident permits from states like UT and TX valid in your state if the permitholder has a DL from a state that you have punitively blocked permits from for not honoring your permits, EG the states in the northeast.

    Show us it’s not all about the money.

  7. Sen. Portilla has chosen to not put the campus carry bill on the agenda twice, leaving it to die at his feet.

    For two months last year it remained unscheduled until the year ended and its consideration lapsed.

    It has been introduced once again. If it passes, it should come into effect on 7/1/16.

    https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0068

    TTAG, thank you for writing an article and bringing awareness to this issue. Though it has passed with flying colors every time, it only comes to stop at Sen. Portilla’s feet. He knows it would pass if he scheduled it, so he pretends to ignore it. He alone should not have that power.

    My school is tightly controlling student response for the bill. Last year they sponsored a few public rallies calling for civilian disarmament, and on at least one occasion the student council polled the campus for interest (at a kiosk, in person, which I was not invited to). They had some internal conflict about the issue, their feelings against campus carry outweighing their capacity for rational thought, and published a very concerning and outspoken “official stance” which was later revoked and replaced.

    That many of our student body is too young to carry is an issue, but the general lack of understanding when it comes to firearms is far worse. Just a few months ago we had dozens of first responders pouring into campus with reports of an “active shooter” which in reality was a professor that popped two balloons in a class demonstration. The roots of this problem run deep. The power of ignorance is stammering; it is by far the most powerful political tool.

  8. These are the top 10 most popular tourism destination states, in descending order:
    California, Florida, Nevada, Texas, New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Tennessee.

    Most of those states have high gun ownership and concealed carry license rates, while several are strong on open carry, too. I don’t doubt that the anti-gun hysteria crowd will hurl whatever inane argument they can to shut down freedom. I just don’t buy that the adoption of open carry in a high tourism state would have any measurable impact on that industry.

    Especially in a place like Florida, their big tourist attractions are largely self-contained vacation venues where you’ll likely venture no further than their boundaries. Such places are already anti-gun and you’d likely never come in contact with anyone carrying concealed or open. I just don’t see that impacting anyone’s decision.

    Even in people’s own home states, they often are not even aware that open carry is legal. I doubt very many people are going to plan their vacation around the open carry law of a state on the edge of the country.

  9. Where did the idea originate that committees either pass or block bills for a vote of the full Senate, House, etc.? Regardless of where I stand on these particular bills, this whole committee thing seems to be entirely anathema to our representative governmental process.

    • Or how about Michigan, where a Senate committee can pass a bill with recommendation for immediate passage, and the RINO Senate Majority Leader can let the whole session run out without bringing it to a vote on the floor, because the anti-gun RINO Governor ordered him to kill it?

      Let’s make Chris Christie the GOP nominee for president. Anything that will hasten the long overdue death of the GOP is good for the long-term health of the nation.

  10. I donlt beleive the sheriffs of the state of Florida have the right to violate our 4th ammendent constitutional right
    that has been handed down by our for father;They are really afraid we might a better job then they are doing
    for they just want to keep their big fat checks that they are paid by us citizens.

  11. Prior to 1987, open carry of pistols was legal in Florida. That changed when Janet Reno of the Clinton administration got involved. She was the main architect of open carry being banned in 1987.

    Just whose side are these supposedly gun-rights friendly Republicans on anyway?

    Let’s get this thing done, and stop pussy-footing around!

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