‘Gunshine State’ on hold as bills stuck in neutral
At the halfway mark of the annual Florida legislative session, everyone but Republican leaders appear frustrated with the approach to gun regulations.
In more than two dozen bills filed for the 60-day session, gun control and Second Amendment advocates proposed 12 changes in state law on who can buy firearms, background checks for purchases, and how guns are stored.
Eight of the ideas would increase requirements for gun owners.
Only one has been debated and has passed a Senate committee: A stray bullet bill prohibiting firing a gun over or across property lines. It has yet to be heard in the House, however.
The other four make it easier to acquire a gun and have passed House committees, two along party line votes, and two unanimously, without any of them yet heard in the Senate.
Specifically, they would reduce age requirements, limit waiting periods, exempt juvenile felony convictions as a prohibition to buy a firearm, and mandate law enforcement’s quicker return of weapons seized after an arrest but that won’t be used as evidence.
Gun rights advocates fume that those proposals appear stalled in a Legislature where Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers. Gun safety advocates are shocked that a state that is home to two of the deadliest mass shootings of the past eight years would even consider relaxing regulations.
Florida’s reputation as the ‘Gunshine State’
One thing’s for sure: Florida has been the frontier for the expansion of gun rights in the modern era.
It started in 1987 when lawmakers made the state first to allow residents to carry concealed weapons. Two years later the Legislature preempted local gun control laws.
And in 2005, Florida approved the nation’s first “Stand Your Ground” measure, repealing a person’s duty to retreat before using deadly force.
But a string of statehouse victories for the gun rights lobby came to a halt after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Broward County.
Within weeks of the killings, lawmakers raised the age for firearm sales to 21, banned bump stocks, and required a three-day waiting period for sales.
A coalition of gun rights groups have been fighting to have those restrictions repealed ever since. A challenge of the minimum age requirement is on appeal in federal court.
Luis Valdes, the Florida director for Gun Owners of America, said many of the lawmakers who approved the Parkland
reforms six years ago are still in the Legislature and today block pro-gun legislation.
Gun Owners of America’s top priority is to get a bill to allow open carry, the unconcealed carrying of firearms in public places, he said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed the idea last March, but on opening day of this year’s session, House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said lawmakers had “no appetite” for open carry.
And then after Valdes’ group and others got a House committee to lower the age to buy rifles, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, dismissed the proposal as a “non-starter.”
“Republican lawmakers constantly campaign that they’re pro-gun and the only bulwark to stop Democrats from eviscerating Floridians’ gun rights. But the truth is, the actions of Florida’s top Republicans is that they don’t care about Second Amendment rights,” Valdes said.
Meantime, gun safety groups say they are stymied by a Florida culture that’s divided over guns.
They cannot understand a call for fewer gun regulations in a state where the Stoneman Douglas shooting and 2016’s Pulse gay nightclub shooting – in which a total of 63 were killed and 56 injured – remain top of mind for many.
The House Criminal Justice Committee voted to lower the age to buy a rifle less than two weeks before the sixth anniversary of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, a vote that Rep. Dan Daley, DCoral Springs, called a slap in the face of the survivors.
Rep. Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, that bill’s sponsor, said it was important to repeal the age requirement because rural Floridians “do a lot of bird hunting.”
Daley and Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, have tried for four consecutive years to get a hearing for what is called Jaime’s Law. It’s the name of one of the teens killed at Stoneman Douglas High and would require more extensive background checks for purchases.
Polsky is also an advocate for safer storage requirements, but can’t get a hearing for her proposals.
“There is just something really strange about guns and gun culture. They refuse to do whatever they can for safety,” she said about the opposition to gun regulations. “I mean, a safe storage law doesn’t take away guns.”
At the session’s midpoint, here’s a rundown of proposed gun laws:
What’s been heard so far
“Expiration of the Mandatory Waiting Period for Firearm Purchases”
●
(HB 17/SB 1124): Cleared the Criminal Justice Committee on a 11-5 vote. Would establish a “three-day shot clock” on background checks, according to sponsor Rep. Joel Rudman, R-Navarre. Measure is one committee stop from House floor.
● “Unlawful Possession of Firearms by a Person Adjudicated Delinquent”
(HB 489/SB 206): Cleared Criminal Justice Committee on 16-0 vote. Clarified a minor must have been adjudicated delinquent of what would be a felony if committed by an adult to lose the right to possess a firearm. Measure is one committee stop from House floor.
● “Return of Weapons and Arms”
(HB 485/SB 1286): Cleared Criminal Justice Committee on a 18-0 vote. Would require weapons, electric weapons, or arms during an arrest, not seized as evidence, to be returned without a court order. Measure is one committee stop from House floor.
● “Minimum Age for Firearm Purchase”
(HB 1223): Cleared Criminal Justice Committee on a 11-5 vote. Reduces to 18 minimum age at which a person may purchase a firearm. Measure is one committee stop from House floor.
● “Lethal Projectiles Over or Across Private Lands”
(HB 259/SB 270): Cleared Senate Criminal Justice Committee on 5-3 vote. Prohibits person from shooting across property lines without authorization. House has yet to schedule the measure for a hearing.
What’s on hold
Safe storage bills: ●
(HB 291/SB 176) Would revise regulations for the safe storage of firearms to make it a criminal offense to leave a loaded weapon within access of a minor. Set for three committees, has not yet been set for a hearing.
(HB 419/1087/1250/1390) Set specified requirements for storage of firearms in unoccupied vessels and motor vehicles. Each assigned to three committees.
● Repeals: ●
(HB 1619) Would repeal the “constitutional carry” law approved last year to prohibits carrying of concealed handgun or unconcealed firearm without a license and allow open carrying of firearms or electric weapon or device. Assigned to three committees, has yet to be set for hearing.
(HB 787/SB 96) “Self Defense Restoration Act” repeals state’s Stand Your Ground Law that removed one’s duty to avoid the use of deadly force if possible. Measures assigned to three committees each.
● Bans: ●
(SB 130/SB 209) Would ban guns from government funded buildings, facilities and programs, including playgrounds, hospitals, residential facilities and libraries. Both proposals have three committee stops.
(HB 279/SB 150) Would ban sale or transfer of an assault weapon or a large capacity magazine. Covers 15 AR series, 21 AK series, and 40 specific assault weapons and magazines. Both proposals have three committee stops.
(SB 912) Defines term “machine gun” and ranks possession of one as the most severe in the Florida Criminal Punishment Code. Assigned three committees.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@ tallahassee.com. Follow him on X: @CallTallahassee.