In a tweet that has been read nearly four million times, the actor Billy Baldwin writes:
Florida passes concealed carry law this week. It’s like the Wild West down there now.
Two questions…
1. How soon before innocent people die as a results of this in some domestic, racial, road rage or alcohol related incident? How soon before a child, woman or cop are struck down?
Will the first incident occur at a 4th of July BBQ tomorrow?2. How many American and Canadian tourists will no longer winter in Florida because they don’t feel safe?
How much tourism revenue will Florida lose due to DeSantis’s new “Shootout at the O.K. Corral” law?
I don’t know what any of this means. I assume by “Florida passes concealed carry law this week,” Baldwin is observing that the permitless carry law that Governor DeSantis signed back in April went into effect on July 1. But the rest? The rest is baffling nonsense.
What is “it’s like the Wild West down there now” supposed to convey? Baldwin posted his tweet on July 3. Had he noticed a difference in Florida’s atmosphere over the previous three days? Had he seen the state’s concealed-carry regime manifesting itself in a palpably different manner than on June 30? Had he even visited the place? And if he had, did Florida seem different than any of the other 25 states that already have permitless carry? (Nebraska’s law, the 27th, goes into effect on September 10.) Did Florida seem different than Vermont or Kentucky or Utah or Arizona or Ohio? Was it distinguishable from Maine or Texas or Indiana? Are those states like the “Wild West”? And, if so, what does that mean in practice?
I don’t understand his questions, either. He asks: “How soon before innocent people die as a results of this in some domestic, racial, road rage or alcohol related incident?” What does he think would cause this? Florida’s permitless carry law allows any resident who would be eligible to get a concealed-carry permit to carry a gun without first obtaining one. It does not allow ineligible residents to carry, buy, transfer, or possess a firearm. It does not circumvent the federal background-check system. It does not change which guns are prohibited. It does not alter where weapons may be carried. It removes the application process, along with its fee, wait, fingerprinting requirement, and training course. Why would this make it more likely that an “innocent” person will “die” “in some domestic, racial, road rage or alcohol related incident”? Does Baldwin believe that the existence of laminated cards kept eligible citizens from shooting their families, people of different races, other motorists, or bar-mates? And, if so, how? One doesn’t need a concealed-carry permit to have a gun in the home; how would Florida’s law affect “domestic” violence? One doesn’t need a concealed-carry permit to have a gun in one’s car; how would Florida’s law affect “road rage”? One isn’t allowed to carry guns in bars in Florida or to handle firearms while drunk; why would Florida’s law affect “alcohol related incidents”? As for “racial” violence, what does the permitting system have to do with that? Does Baldwin believe that the now-defunct concealed-carry classes were preventing interracial animosity?
I have many of the same queries about Baldwin’s asking “How soon before a child, woman or cop are struck down?” By whom? In what circumstances? And why “child, woman or cop,” specifically? Cops are in the most danger at traffic stops and when responding to calls at private residences; under Florida law, neither of these intersect with concealed-carry. Women are allowed to carry guns, too — and they increasingly do. Is it worse when women are killed than men? Is Baldwin thinking of domestic violence, which is unaffected by the law governing concealed-carry? What about children? Children are not allowed to carry guns, and the law has not changed that. Is Baldwin referring to mass shootings? If so, can he point to a single mass shooter in American history whose crime had anything to with — or was affected even incidentally (other than being stopped) — by the location’s concealed-carry rules?
Baldwin then asks: “Will the first incident occur at a 4th of July BBQ tomorrow?” What does he believe that Florida’s law has to do with “4th of July BBQs”? Most BBQs are held in private homes, where one does not need a permit to carry a gun. Is Baldwin under the impression that the sort of people who are responsible for violence in private homes are sticklers for the permitting rules? Does he think that Florida is teeming with people who were unlikely to cause an “incident” at a “4th of July BBQ” when they were legally obliged to get a concealed-carry permit, but who are likely to cause such “incidents” now that they are not? What is the link between these things? Is Baldwin thinking about the shooting last year in Illinois? That was carried out with a rifle that can’t be concealed. Is he thinking about the many shootings in America’s cities around July 4th? If so, can he explain how the concealed-carry regulations intersect with them? Are the people who conduct those legally eligible to carry weapons? Do they have permits? If they do, did those permits stop them from doing what they did? If they don’t, did the lack of those permits stop them from doing what they did? What’s the argument here?
Baldwin continues: “How many American and Canadian tourists will no longer winter in Florida because they don’t feel safe?” “Safe” in what sense? There are, indeed, lots of guns in Florida. If one doesn’t want to be around them, one could plausibly choose to stay away. But Florida’s new law doesn’t have much to do with that. Those guns were here before, and they’ll be here afterwards. Does Baldwin, perhaps, think that Florida allows the open carrying of firearms, which it does not? To this initial inquiry, Baldwin adds another: “How much tourism revenue will Florida lose due to DeSantis’s new ‘Shootout at the O.K. Corral’ law?” What does “new ‘Shootout at the O.K Corral’ law” mean? Florida’s law makes the permitting process for concealed-carry optional for eligible law-abiding residents (Floridians can still choose to obtain a permit so that they can carry in other states). Does Baldwin think that, in the process, Florida has legalized murder? Does he think that it has altered the circumstances in which one is allowed to use deadly force? The word “shootout” has a concrete meaning. What can that meaning possibly have to do with Florida’s bill? And what can it have to do with “tourism revenue”? Is Baldwin under the impression that would-be tourists were fine with Florida having a “shall issue” system, under which anyone eligible who applied was granted a concealed-carry permit, but that they’re horrified by permitless carry, the eligibility pool for which is identical? If so, why? And why doesn’t the same problem obtain in Maine, Texas, Alaska, Arizona, Utah, Montana, and elsewhere?
One can only imagine that Baldwin believes that states that pass permitless carry see an increase in crime as a result. But they don’t — which is one reason, among many, that not one of the 26 states that has passed permitless carry legislatively (Vermont’s was achieved via a judicial decision in 1903) has repealed the system, or even held a hearing on the matter. Ultimately, this is a bureaucratic change: starting in 2003, a majority of the states looked at their permitting systems, noticed that they weren’t doing anything useful, and resolved to get rid of them. If your aim is to ban all guns — and you’re thus opposed to anything that gets you further away from that end — that’s probably quite annoying. If that’s not your aim, then what Florida did is either a marginal improvement or entirely irrelevant to you, and the sort of hyperventilation that is on display from Billy Baldwin and others must look as mystifying as it does to me.