Florida Open Carry Bill Passes Committee

By Dean Weingarten

Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)-
Florida CS/SB 300 has passed the Senate Criminal Justice committee, 3 to 2.  Florida is one of only five states where the open carry of modern handguns is routinely banned in public places.  Texas passed a licensed open carry bill on 13 June of 2015.  It will go into effect in January.  The gun law reform bill that passed the Florida Senate committee still has quite a ways to go.  It would reform several aspects of the current law that have been shown to have deleterious effects over the last few years.  Here is a summation of the bill.  From flsenate.gov:

Weapons and Firearms; Providing for construction of statutes that implicate the right to bear arms or engage in self-defense; specifying that a law enforcement officer may arrest a person for the unlicensed carrying of a concealed weapon only upon probable cause that such a violation is being committed; providing that a person licensed to carry a concealed firearm or weapon may also openly carry such firearm or weapon as long as such person is in compliance with specified provisions; providing that a person or entity who infringes on specified rights of an individual may be subject to liability under specified provisions, etc.

The Orlando Sentinel noted that all the gun reform bills are moving in the legislature.  Maybe 2015, with an election coming next year, will show significant progress on gun reform legislation.   From orlandosentinel.com:

All of the bills are moving swiftly through the committee process ahead of the Legislature’s regular session, which begins in January.

Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith spoke in favor of the open-carry bill, saying he’d rather know who in a crowd is carrying a gun.

“Some people don’t like guns, I’m OK with that,’’ Smith said. “Get a can of wasp spray if it works for you.”

Democrats were the only legislators who voted against the bill in committee. From the miamiherald.typepad.com:

“It intimidates people and it makes for a less-friendly downtown shopping environment and it’s not the kind of world I want to live in,” said Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth. “..it’s not the kind of world I want to live in,” seems to be a common talking point among Democrats.   Others have noted that leftists in general, are angry about reality.  When you consider that the open carry bill being considered in Florida is one of the milder types of legal open carry already in effect in 44 states, soon to be 45 with Texas, you have to wonder how disarmists such as Sen. Clemens, manage to travel about the country.

Perhaps they are simply fearful, angry, and negative most of the time.  This view is supported by the work of the well known Australian academic, John Jay Ray.   Ray studied the psychology of political leftists.  From The Root Causes of Political Leftism:

The first remaining thing to say about them is that Leftism is emotional.  The second is to say that the emotion is negative and the third thing to say is that the negative emotion (usually anger/hate/rage) is directed at the world about the Leftist, at the status quo if you like.  The Leftist is nothing if he is not a critic, though usually a very poorly-informed critic.  And the criticisms tend to be both pervasive and deeply felt.

Definition of disarmist

c2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch

About Dean Weingarten;

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.