2023 Florida Gun Bills Are Clearly Not “Constitutional Carry” Bills

Marion P. Hammer
USF Executive Director
NRA Past President

Florida – HB-543 by Rep. Chuck Brannan and SB-150 by Sen. Jay Collins are clearly NOT “Constitutional Carry” bills. The bills should more appropriately be called “Permitless Concealed Carry.”

Even though the bills are NOT “Constitutional Carry”, the bills are a positive step forward for law-abiding gun owners. Both bills remove the requirement of a license to carry a concealed weapon or firearm as is currently required under Florida law and has been required since 1893. (over 125 years)

Under the proposed bills, the concealed weapon and firearm licensing program administered by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is still in place and is virtually untouched. Therefore, people who wish to keep or acquire a license to carry concealed may continue to do so as in the past.

Many (maybe most) current license holders will choose to keep the license because it not only provides for reciprocity with other states but in addition, a license holder is exempt from the waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a firearm.

Both bills clearly state that an unlicensed person may carry a concealed weapon or firearm as defined in 790.06(1).

Further, in order to carry a concealed weapon or firearm without a license, a person must satisfy most of the criteria for receiving and maintaining a license under s. 790.06. However, the bills specifically eliminate self-defense as the specific reason for which a person may carry concealed and eliminates the training requirement in order to carry concealed without a license.

Nothing in either bill allows citizens to open carry a weapon or firearm.

While the bills may not be perfect and may not contain all of the provisions that many would like to see in the bill, they are nonetheless a good first step toward restoring the constitutional right to carry in Florida.

Incremental restoration is far better than no restoration. Some might say that restoring rights is much like eating an elephant, you do it one bite at a time.

History Of Carrying Firearms In Florida

In 1893 the Florida Legislature passed legislation requiring a person to have a license to carry a firearm.

A Florida Supreme Court En Banc Opinion issued November 21, 1941, in Watson v. Stone 148 Fla. 516 (Fla. 1941) • 4 So. 2d 700 contained a statement in a special written concurring opinion by Justice Rivers H. Buford:

Watson v. Stone, 4 So. 2d 700, 703 (Fla. 1941) (Buford, J., concurring) “I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 …has been generally conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and non-enforceable if contested.”

The old Florida law delegated the issuing authority and development of the criteria for issuing to Florida’s 67 individual County Commissions. Additionally, under the old law, a license to carry was only valid in the county of issuance.

In 1987 legislation was passed that provided standardized, statewide criteria for the issuance of a license to carry a concealed weapon or firearm. The license became valid statewide in Florida with the state being the sole issuing authority.

Over 2.6 million people currently possess a Florida Concealed Weapon or Firearm License.

Also, in 1987, Florida law allowed for open carry of a firearm without a license.

Unfortunately, a Tallahassee TV reporter did a story claiming that people would not bother to get a concealed carry license because they could carry openly without a license.

Then Florida Governor Bob Martinez literally panicked. It didn’t matter that open carry had never been a problem. Gov. Bob Martinez became hysterical and engineered the call for a Special Session in October 1987, and demanded that the law allowing open carry be repealed.

Stampeded by the anti-gun media and by Governor Bob Martinez (who was clearly ignorant on firearms issues) the Legislature passed a bill making open carry of a weapon or firearm illegal.

In 2011, a bill to allow open carry of firearms for persons who had concealed carry licenses was moving through the Legislature. The plan was to restore open carry rights incrementally.

Unfortunately, members of a group called Florida Carry, Inc. opposed the bill because they wanted full open carry without a license. Some motorcycle gang members of the organization even stormed the Capitol wearing black leather with silver chains and started threatening legislators.

Florida Carry, Inc. officials refused to agree to incremental restoration and demanded full open carry – anytime and anywhere or nothing. They got nothing.

Clearly, the “all or nothing” folks today either don’t know or didn’t learn from history.

Opposing HB-543 and SB-150 is ill-advised. Incremental restoration is much better than no restoration. In other words, something is always better than nothing, and you can always continue to work for more. That’s the nature of the legislative process.

It’s important to understand that you climb a mountain one step at a time. If you keep throwing yourself off a cliff and falling to the bottom, you’ll never get to the top of the mountain.

About Unified Sportsmen of Florida (USF)

Organized in 1976, with the assistance of the National Rifle Association, Unified Sportsmen of Florida (USF) is a non-profit membership organization incorporated under the laws of Florida. Affiliated with NRA as the Florida Legislative affiliate, USF is an independent organization dependent on membership dues and contributions for financial support. Unified Sportsmen of Florida was organized for the purpose of protecting the firearms rights of all law-abiding firearms owners in Florida and to preserve the firearms rights guaranteed in the United States and Florida Constitutions.