Any way you slice it, the bill should be entirely uncontroversial.
Any way you slice it, the bill should be entirely uncontroversial.
A t long last, Florida looks set to become a “constitutional carry” state. Earlier this week, a bill to make concealed-carry permits optional for residents of the state was filed in the legislature, where it is expected to pass. Last year, Governor DeSantis promised that, if such a measure were to hit his desk, he would sign it. And that, all things being equal, will be that.
Despite the breathless tone in which such developments are invariably covered, there is no good reason for this proposal to worry anyone. If the measure succeeds, Florida will become the 26th U.S. state with permitless carry — joining a diverse group of forerunners that includes Arizona, Vermont, Alaska, West Virginia, Indiana, Wyoming, and Maine. And then? Well . . . not much, really. Contra the frantic insinuations of its opponents, permitless carry does not mean that those who are otherwise legally prohibited from owning a gun will now be able to do so; it does not abolish the federal background-check system, which applies irrespective of state law; it does not nix or alter any of the existing restrictions on the places in which carriers may take their firearms; and, as the RAND Corporation has noted, there is no evidence that it either decreases or increases crime. At root, permitless carry is a paperwork reform — a bureaucratic change that simply removes the requirement that qualified gun-owners must ask the government for permission before they may carry a concealed firearm in public. That’s it.
In its piece on the move, the Tallahassee Democrat quotes Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, “a former Democratic member of Congress from Miami,” who has “pointed out that Florida is home to two of the nation’s worst mass shootings — Orlando’s Pulse nightclub and Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.” But, as is typical of objections to permitless carry, this is such an absurd non sequitur that it is difficult to intuit what Mucarsel-Powell could possibly be hoping to convey. The shooters at Pulse and at Parkland used rifles, which are not eligible for concealed carry, and which are not referenced in, or affected by, this proposal in any form. Florida could pass this bill, or it could reject this bill, and, in neither case would anything at stake so much as intersect with the details of Pulse or with Parkland. As ever, I consider it the height of self-delusion to believe that the particulars of our firearms laws will have any effect on those who are inclined to commit mass murder. But, even if one does believe that, it remains an indisputable fact that there is no connection whatsoever between what Florida is trying to do and what happened at Pulse, at Parkland, or anywhere else. It is instructive to note, perhaps, that the only occasion in recent memory on which this policy question has converged with a mass shooting came last year in Indiana, where the guy who took down the killer, Elisjsha Dicken, told police that, absent the state’s permitless-carry law, he would not have been carrying his gun.
Echoing Mucarsel-Powell, the advocacy group Prevent Gun Violence Florida described the bill as “outlandish.” It is no such thing. As a matter of fact, the initial draft of the law is actually somewhat modest compared to those that have passed in other jurisdictions. Unlike the vast majority of permitless-carry states, Florida would apply its provision to Floridians only, which would mean that any out-of-staters who wish to carry in Florida would still be required to show their permits. Unlike, say, Texas and Georgia, Florida does not intend to repeal its ban on the open carrying of firearms. And, as the bill makes clear, permits will still be available for those who want them. When one considers that Florida already allows legally eligible gun-owners to carry concealed weapons in their cars without a permit, the limited scale of the change becomes clear. Granted, it doesn’t make a great story — and it certainly doesn’t lend itself to the hyperbole one might expect to see in a fundraising email or an attack ad — but the appropriate headline for this move is, “Florida Becomes 26th Permitless-Carry State, Taking Less Dramatic Steps Than Most Others.”