On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s permitless carry bill into law. This allows guns to be carried almost anywhere without a permit.
It seems incredible, given the number of mass shootings that this country has witnessed in the recent past, but Florida governor Ron DeSantis is making gun laws even more liberal, at a time when many legislators and the public are clamoring for more restrictive measures.
Concealed carry permits will no longer be required after July 1.
“This doesn’t change you into James Bond with a license to kill,” said Carey Baker, owner of A.W. Peterson Gun Shop in Mt. Dora and former state lawmaker.
Baker says the background checks for concealed carry permits are not substantially different than they are for purchasing a gun, and requiring a concealed carry permit at an initial cost of roughly $150 (with $45 renewals) amounts to an unnecessary expense.
“Twenty-five other states have adopted this type of law or a similar one and they have not had any problems” and Baker, the owner of a gun shop, says this more liberal access to guns, “has been a wildly successful program in other states. I think it will be the same right here in Florida.”
Critics say the so-called public safety bill leaves out a key provision: the requirement for a “safety course.” That means anyone passing background checks for all guns and waiting the mandatory three-day period for a handgun can carry one concealed with no experience or training.
“People do not feel safer when they know that people are wandering around Publix with a gun they learned how to use on YouTube,” Brandon Wolf with Equality Florida said.
Wolf is a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando. He says Republicans could and should have required firearms training.
“When you hand someone a gun they don’t know how to use, they don’t know how to load, they don’t know how to store, it is far more likely they are going to end up injuring or killing themselves or someone else in the process,” Wolf said.
