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DeSantis says he’s on-board with open carry, but…

March 6, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

When the Florida legislature’s 2023 session officially gets underway on Tuesday, one of the first orders of business is expected to be the approval of permitless carry legislation. Both the House and Senate have been holding committee hearings on the legislation ahead of the official start of the session, and the House bill is already cleared for debate on the floor so it shouldn’t take long before the final votes are held.

While there’s not much doubt that permitless carry legislation will get to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature, there’s still some question about what the bill will actually look like in its final form. Many Second Amendment advocates, alongside Gun Owners of America, have objected to the fact that neither the House nor Senate bill allows for open carry, but over the weekend GOA’s Florida director managed to get the governor to endorse amending the bill and addressing the concerns of 2A activists… though there is a catch.

Havana’s Luis Valdes recorded DeSantis Thursday night saying that he supports allowing Floridians to openly display firearms in public, but DeSantis doesn’t believe lawmakers will be willing to amend a permitless carry bill moving in the House.
“Yeah, absolutely,” DeSantis is heard to say when asked whether a permitless carry bill HB 543 should be amended to allow people to carry and display firearms in most public places.
The exchange took place in Jacksonville where DeSantis was promoting his book, “The Courage to Be Free,” which is widely believed to be the opening act of a presidential campaign.
“I don’t think they’ll do it,” said DeSantis about lawmakers giving gun rights groups what they want.
“But, I would absolutely,” said DeSantis.
Valdes, the executive director of the Florida chapter of Gun Owners of America, said he found the exchange with DeSantis encouraging for the open carry movement.

It’s definitely encouraging, though I don’t know that it will have much of an impact this session. Remember, DeSantis was publicly supportive of a permitless or Constitutional Carry bill last year too, and yet permitless carry didn’t even receive a single hearing in committee in 2022. DeSantis had an opportunity to include permitless carry in the legislature’s special session last year as well, but it wasn’t included on the governor’s agenda.

To me, the big questions don’t revolve around whether DeSantis supports including open carry in the permitless carry legislation, but how much he’s willing to twist arms and do some horse-trading with reluctant legislators in order to make it happen this year… along with how open GOP leadership in the legislature is to making those changes to improve the bill.

The GOA argued during a committee hearing last month, the restrictions on open carry infringed on a “God-given right to self-defense enshrined in the Constitution.”
[Bill sponsor Rep. Chuck] Brannan explained the bill aims to, “allow Floridians to carry their concealed (weapon) without the red tape and expense of government … that’s what it’s really about.” When pushed on adding an open carry provision, he added that the bill “is what it is as it’s filed,” according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Valdes calls Brannan’s apparent unwillingness to amend his proposal discouraging, and the lack of action in the Senate on an amendment, hypocritical for Republicans.
“The Republican Supermajority is refusing to advance true constitutional carry legislation, even though the governor promised to give Florida’s voters exactly that, and it’s what the citizenry is demanding,” said Valdes in a prepared statement. “A real constitutional carry law will allow law-abiding Floridians and our guests to legally conceal and open carry firearms without a government permission slip.”

Florida is one of just three states that don’t allow open-carry in any form or fashion, and it really is somewhat bizarre to see the reticence of Republican lawmakers to include open carry in the current legislation. I have yet to hear a good explanation for its absence, at least from a policy perspective. Politically, the lack of an open carry provision may have been necessary in order to get the support of lawmakers like Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, who said last year that she preferred putting a Constitutional Carry measure to a vote of the people instead of passing a bill through the legislature.

Passidomo is now supporting the Senate bill, so something changed over the past few months, and I can’t help but wonder if open carry was a part of the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to her change of heart.

Whatever the motivation, if the current permitless carry legislation has a chance of being amended it’s going to take more than the governor’s comments to Valdes on Friday night. If DeSantis takes the approach that he’ll sign whatever lawmakers give him I doubt that open carry will be a part of whatever gets to his desk, and I hope that the governor’s remarks will be repeated in a more public setting before the floor debate on HB 543 gets underway.

Emails allege DeSantis wanted election night party to be “gun-free zone”

February 10, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a pretty good record when it comes to Second Amendment issues, but he does have some critics among gun rights supporters. In the current debate over permitless carry legislation, for instance groups like Gun Owners of America and some current gun owners in the state have accused DeSantis and other Republicans of pulling a “bait and switch” on gun owners by leaving the state’s ban on openly carried firearms untouched while allowing concealed carry without a license.

Now DeSantis has another issue to contend with. The Washington Post (no fan of either DeSantis or the Second Amendment, it should be noted) says its obtained emails showing that the DeSantis campaign wanted his election night celebration at the Tampa Convention Center to be a “gun-free zone”… but didn’t want the decision to come from them.

“DeSantis/his campaign will not tell their attendees they are not permitted to carry because of the political optics,” Chase Finch, the convention center’s safety and security manager, said in an Oct. 28 email to other city officials about the request, which was conveyed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, a state police agency led by a DeSantis appointee.
Finch further explained that because of “Republicans largely being in support of 2A,” referring to the Second Amendment, “Basically it sounds like they want us to say it’s our policy to disallow firearms within the event space if anyone asks.”

As the Post notes, this isn’t the only “gun-free” event that DeSantis has been involved with. A fundraiser for the governor held back in October also required attendees to pass through a metal detector before entering the soiree. Team DeSantis has issued a couple of statements in response to the Post; neither of them denying the veracity of the emails.

In response to questions from The Post about gun bans at DeSantis events, the governor’s deputy press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said in an email, “We do not comment on speculation and hearsay. The Governor is strongly in support of individuals’ constitutional right to bear arms.”
Lindsey Curnutte, a spokeswoman for the governor’s political team, said, “We follow the guidance of the FDLE and local law enforcement to keep the governor and his family safe during events.”
The FDLE, which reports to the governor and three other statewide elected officials, values “the rights of our citizens to legally bear arms,” said agency spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger, and makes decisions based on “security threats.” She added in an email: “FDLE encourages private and public venues to limit weapons when hosting the Governor and First Family at large events. Doing so enhances the ability of law enforcement officers and FDLE Protective Operations agents to work proficiently and quickly in the event of an emergency.”

It’s important to note that the request to prohibit firearms from the Tampa Convention Center came from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and not directly from the DeSantis campaign itself, but there’s no indication that the governor ever objected.

So how much of an issue will this be for DeSantis going forward? Depends on who you ask.

As DeSantis considers a 2024 presidential bid, potential GOP opponents who have put gun rights at the center of their agendas, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, could seek to capitalize on the issue, said Luis Valdes, Florida state director of Gun Owners of America. Former president Donald Trump, who is running for another term, was credited by the NRA’s political arm in 2020 with doing “more than any president to protect the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”
“DeSantis continually pays lip service to the Second Amendment as he positions himself for a nationwide run, and yet what I am seeing as a constituent of his and as a Floridian is that his events are gun-free zones,” Valdes said. “His primary rivals will clean his clock on guns.”

Maybe, though other candidates may have their own experiences with “gun-free zones” as well, including Donald Trump, who was dinged in 2016 for bashing policies that bar concealed carry holders, but it turned out that several Trump-owned properties had their own prohibitions in place.

Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s posh Florida club, doesn’t allow guns, a hotel staff member told ABC News.
Trump National Doral, in Miami, Florida, doesn’t allow guns either, a security official told ABC News. The resort would “much rather not” have guns on the property, said a security official with the hotel, who noted that guns are “not to be carried on our property.”
“We’ve had guests that have brought them before,” he said, but those guns “had to remain in their safe the whole time in the room.”
A security worker at Trump National in Jupiter, Florida, said “no” when asked if guns were allowed on premises by citizens who are licensed to carry them. Asked about exceptions for people like off-duty cops, the staff member directed ABC News to a supervisor, who said the hotel had no comment at all on guns at the property.
Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County, Florida, also doesn’t allow citizens with concealed-carry licenses to bring their guns on the property, a golf-shop worker told ABC News.

In almost 20 years of covering the Second Amendment, I have to say that while issues like these may resonate with staunch 2A activists, they rarely draw the ire of conservatives at large, much less the general public. Conservative Political Action Conference events, for instance, have taken place in “gun-free zones” over the years, including at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, D.C. back when the District still prohibited all carrying of firearms, as well as the Hyatt Regency in Orlando; home to CPAC’s 2021 conference. I did check with the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center today and was informed that guests who possess a valid concealed carry license in Maryland can carry on the resort property, which is good to know, at least for those Maryland residents who may be attending CPAC 2023 in a few weeks (though I’d check with CPAC to see if they have any event-specific policies as well).

As far as DeSantis goes, I don’t think the WaPo’s uncovering of these emails is going to sink his chances in 2024, but he may have some work to do with Second Amendment activists. Of course, the same can be said of the other main contender for the nomination at the moment; who not only has his own issues with “gun-free zones” but an administrative ban on bump stocks as a permanent blot on his record.

I’ve been voting in presidential elections for 30 years and I’ve yet to run across the perfect candidate, so I’m not expecting to finally have one next year. Frankly, even the squishiest of RINOs would be better than Joe Biden or anyone else the Democrats put up in his stead, but the candidate who’ll get my vote will be one who best convinces me that they truly understand and respect the fundamental importance of our right to keep and bear arms and aren’t just paying lip service to the Second Amendment.

NC gun instructor’s permit delays disappear after local media gets involved

February 1, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Either this is an amazing coincidence, or another piece of evidence that the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina is playing games with the fundamental right to armed self-defense.

Charlotte news station WSOC-TV has been covering the lengthy delays in processing concealed carry permits in Mecklenburg County for several months; a delay that Sheriff Garry McFadden blames on the Department of Veterans Affairs for not quickly responding to requests for any mental health records. The problem with the sheriff’s excuse, according to a lawsuit filed by the 2A group Grassroots NC and Gun Owners of America, is that no other county in the state is experiencing the same issues. They blame the delays on McFadden, accusing him of intentionally slow-walking the application process by making irrelevant and unnecessary records requests,

North Carolina law provides that Defendants must issue concealed handgun permits (“CHP”) to qualified applicants “within 45 days after receipt of the [application] items . . . from an applicant, and receipt of the required records concerning the mental health or capacity of the applicant.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.15(a) (2022). The statute further provides that “[t]he sheriff shall make the request for any records concerning the mental health or capacity of the applicant within 10 days of receipt of the [application] items.” Id. Clearly, by imposing these strict time frames and permitting no deviation, the statute contemplates that North Carolina CHPs are to be issued by North Carolina sheriffs promptly, and without delay.
In Mecklenburg County, however, Sheriff McFadden has chosen to deliberately abuse this time-sensitive licensing process, firing off numerous and irrelevant mental health records requests to all manner of state and federal entities, including the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) – even when an applicant has never served in the military. Few if any other North Carolina sheriffs make such delay-oriented mental health requests before issuing CHPs and, not coincidentally, those sheriffs are able to issue or deny all CHP applications within the statutory 45-day window (if not much sooner than that). Yet what takes other North Carolina sheriffs days or weeks to accomplish, Sheriff McFadden drags out for anywhere from many months to over a year. In other words, Sheriff McFadden has seized on the discretionary latitude granted by the Mental Health Provisions to create and impose significant delays on the CHP process for law-abiding residents of Mecklenburg County, only to throw up his hands and claim that the months-long delays in receiving mental health records is completely outside of his control.

Which brings us to the case of firearms instructor Bryan Yerke, who’s one of thousands of Mecklenburg County residents who’ve seen their concealed carry licenses expire thanks to the sheriff’s slowdown. Yerke applied to renew his carry license last summer, well ahead of its expiration in September, but heard nothing from McFadden’s office until Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours after WSOC reporter Hunter Sáenz brought up Yerke’s situation in an interview with McFadden himself.

For months, Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz has covered the challenges people face with getting gun permits approved in Mecklenburg County. Knowing he was going to talk with him, Sáenz asked for the sheriff’s office to weigh in on Bryan Yerke’s renewal — he asked them what was taking so long for it to go through.
By Tuesday afternoon, Yerke’s permit was finally approved. But the process to get there is what hundreds of others are still going through.
Yerke is a certified concealed handgun instructor. But since September of last year, by no fault of his own, his concealed handgun permit has been expired.
“Oh it’s definitely an unpleasant experience,” he said.
It meant he can’t carry his gun around, and later this month he could lose his gun permits in other states as well.
He said he did everything right last summer — he filled out the application and even paid the fee. But as of Tuesday morning, his application was still pending.
“I want the sheriff to obey the law,” Yerke said.
Then, after Sáenz started asking questions, Yerke’s permit was approved Tuesday afternoon. But there are many others who are still waiting.
According to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, as of Monday, there were more than 3,000 unfulfilled concealed handgun permits.
In November, Sheriff Garry McFadden said he sends every applicant to the Veteran’s Administration as part of his mental health checks. Once an application is complete and all mental health checks are met, state law requires sheriffs to take less than 45 days to approve or deny a permit.
“We can’t make these institutions work any faster, we can’t demand them to work any faster. So that’s the clog,” McFadden said.
Data shows the sheriff’s office is still waiting to get mental health checks back from applicants who applied in March of last year. Yerke, who was caught up in that wait, said that’s not right. He doesn’t understand why his application needs to go to the VA because he’s not even a veteran.
“The Veteran’s Affairs office would have no information whatsoever on me,” Yerke said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me, unless you factor in that we may have a sheriff that just does not want to issue gun permits, period.”

Requesting non-existent mental health records from the VA and refusing to start processing carry applications until the agency tells the sheriff they have no such records sure sounds like a way to game the system and prevent people from exercising their right to carry, especially since any applicable records from the VA would already be submitted to NICS and would be discovered when McFadden runs a background check on an applicant.

The Grassroots NC/GOA lawsuit argues the records request are duplicative and completely unnecessary, and the fact that Yerke’s paperwork just happened to be completed the very same day that a reporter started asking questions about his application process should be a glaring red flag to the federal judge overseeing the legal challenge to McFadden’s policy and the state’s Mental Health Provisions that supposedly allow McFadden to sit on applications for months on end. So far a date for a hearing on the request for an injunction has not been set, but this is definitely a case for gun owners around the country to keep an eye on going forward.

Permitless concealed carry bill officially introduced in Florida

January 30, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Last year a permitless carry bill introduced in the Florida House of Representatives failed to collect a single co-sponsor or receive a hearing in committee, but with Gov. Ron DeSantis now actively pushing for passage the prospects look much better than they did in 2022. In fact, the measure has already made more progress than it did in the previous session, because on Monday a state senator and state representative officially announced their sponsorship of a Constitutional Carry bill.

HB 543 would make a number of significant improvements to the state’s current concealed carry law, but the biggest change would be that starting on July 1st of this year all those who can lawfully possess a firearm would also be able to legally carry one without having to first obtain pre-approval by the state. That includes non-residents as well as those who currently have a Florida address, at least if the non-residents would be eligible to receive a Florida carry license if they applied for one.

The National Rifle Association was quick to hail the introduction of the permitless carry bills, as well as the support for the legislation from the Florida Sheriffs Association.

“Half of the country currently recognizes the fundamental right of law-abiding gun owners to carry a firearm for self-defense as enshrined in our Constitution,” said Art Thomm, NRA Florida state director. “The NRA is proud to have led this effort across America and looks forward to welcoming Florida into the fold of freedom that constitutional carry provides.”
Introduced by state Rep. Chuck Brannan and state Sen. Jay Collins, constitutional carry allows anyone who is legally allowed to own a firearm to carry a firearm without first getting a permit or paying a fee to the state. Despite claims from some critics, the bill does not allow felons or anyone else prohibited under state or federal law from possessing a firearm to own or carry one. Additionally, this bill will not affect previously issued permits to carry and allows those who still wish to obtain a permit in order to carry in states recognizing Florida’s permits to do so.
Once signed into law, more than half of the nation will recognize this fundamental right.
“Florida has long been at the forefront of supporting their citizens’ right to keep and bear arms,” said Thomm. “We thank Gov. DeSantis for his steadfast leadership on this issue, Speaker Renner and the Florida Sheriffs Association for their backing, and the millions of law-abiding Florida gun owners for their continued support.”

We’re likely to see some pushback on HB 543, not just from anti-gun activists but from some Second Amendment supporters as well. Gun Owners of America put out an alert to members last week warning that the legislation being discussed isn’t a true Constitutional Carry bill at all.

Our sources have told us that the Florida Republican-controlled legislature is only willing to advance a permitless, concealed-only carry bill, not full Constitutional Carry. It seems that the legislature is still averse to the idea of Floridians fully exercising their Second Amendment rights via open carry, something our fellow Americans do in 47 other states.
Governor Ron DeSantis publicly stated that he supports Constitutional Carry and, by definition that includes open carry.

HB 543 doesn’t remove Florida’s current prohibition on open carry, though it does allow for “briefly and openly display[ing]” a concealed firearm so long as it’s not “intentionally displayed in an angry or threatening manner” instead in “necessary self-defense.”

I confess that I’m not sure what the legislature’s hang up is when it comes to open carry, which GOA notes is currently legal in 47 states. Virginia, where I live, is one of those states, and open carry has never been an issue here. I don’t think it would any more problematic in Florida, but it may be an uphill battle to get HB 543 and its companion in the Senate amended to allow for the practice.

Thought it might not be a perfect piece of legislation in the eyes of some gun owners, HB 543 would definitely be an upgrade to the state’s current gun laws. So far there’s been no word on when either the House or Senate bill will get its first hearing, but it’s not too early for Florida gun owners and Second Amendment supporters to contact their lawmakers to urge them to sign on as co-sponsors. The GOP may have numerical superiority in the state legislature, but that doesn’t mean that the legislation is guaranteed to pass. After all, the GOP was in full control of the legislature last year too and permitless carry was never even brought up for a vote in committee, so gun owners shouldn’t be shy about showing their support for the legislation with their own representatives.

Illinois’ gun and mag ban faces two new federal lawsuits

January 25, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

At this point, I think there’s more litigation taking on the state’s new ban on “assault weapons” and “large capacity” magazines than there are sheriffs who say they’ll strictly enforce the new law. In addition to another state-level lawsuit filed by Illinois attorney Thomas DeVore that features more than 1,000 plaintiffs, two more complaints have been filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Illinois; one on behalf of the Illinois Gun Rights Alliance and the second brought by the National Shooting Sports Foundation along with the National Rifle Association.

The new litigation features some heavy hitters at the helm, with California Rifle & Pistol Association president and Second Amendment attorney C.D. “Chuck” Michel serving as lead counsel for the ILGRA lawsuit. The NSSF suit, meanwhile, is being overseen by former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who was the lead attorney in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen; the case that led to SCOTUS overturning the “may issue” carry laws in New York and several other states last year.

The two lawsuits may feature different plaintiffs, but the arguments they raise in opposition to the state’s new ban on modern sporting rifles and “large capacity” magazines are very similar. Both allege that the sweeping bans approved earlier this month target arms that are commonly owned by law-abiding citizens, and are therefore protected by the Second Amendment. Here’s a portion of Clement’s opening argument in the initial complaint:

HB 5741 takes the radical step of banning nearly every modern semiautomatic rifle—the single most popular type of rifle in the country, possessed by Americans in the tens of millions. Indeed, Americans buy more of the most popular type of semiautomatic rifle (the AR-15) each year than the most popular type of automobile (the Ford F-150), and there are more AR-15-style rifles in private hands in America today than subscribers to all daily newspapers nationwide combined.
Almost no other state in the union has ever tried to adopt such an extreme measure—and for good reason, as no less an authority than the Supreme Court has already recognized that semiautomatic rifles “traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful.” Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 612 (1994).
All of that dooms any effort to claim that prohibiting these ubiquitous arms is consistent with “the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” Bruen, 142 S.Ct. at 2127.

It’s hard to argue that the arms banned by Illinois are “dangerous and unusual” and therefore aren’t protected by the Second Amendment when they’re more commonly-owned than the most popular truck in America, and more widely purchased than newspaper subscriptions. The same holds true for the ban on “large capacity” magazines, which Clement notes are owned by tens of millions of Americans. In fact, acccording to the NSSF lawsuit, there are approximately 115 million magazines in the hands of current gun owners that can accept more than ten rounds of ammunition.

The ILGRA complaint opens with an excellent history lesson on both the establishment of the Second Amendment as well as the many changes and developments in the design and manufacture of firearms that took place in the 19th century; the rise of multi-shot revolvers and repeating rifles among them. As Michel points out, “despite these rapid advancements in firearms technology, there was no significant discussion about changing or limiting the scope of the Second Amendment” at the time, nor did “anyone of note suggest that the right did not apply to the transformative firearm technology of the time.”

The type of gun and magazine bans imposed by Illinois lawmakers are thoroughly modern inventions, in other words, with no real analogue in history that the state can point to in order to justify the new law.

Both suits are also seeking injunctive relief from the state’s newest infringements, and hopefully we’ll see a date set for a TRO hearing in one or both cases this week. Every day these prohibitions remain in place the rights of Illinois residents are being impacted, no matter how minimally the law is being enforced across much of the state, and since lawmakers are refusing to recognize the fundamental right to keep and bear arms it’s up to the courts to reign in their continued abuses.