On Monday, April 3, 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 543 into law. This bill makes it possible for Floridians to carry concealed firearms without a permit. This means not going through the background screening and training that is currently required to have a concealed carry license. But you still need to have a valid ID on you, as if that makes the person carrying the gun less likely to shoot the people around them.
DeSantis claimed, in response to the bill, that “you don’t need a permission slip from the government to be able to exercise your constitutional rights,”
Starting July 1, 2023, anybody will be able to carry guns anywhere without the need for a permit. This new permitless carry law will put Floridians in danger even more than they already are. This will make it exponentially easier for someone to steal a gun and for authorities not to ask for proof of ownership.
Over 130 mass shootings have happened in the U.S. so far, and this new bill allows for the hurried increase of this number.
The signing of this bill happened only a week after the notorious shooting in a Nashville school. The closeness of these events, the shooting and the bill that allows for lax gun laws, makes one wonder if the disregard for the clear-cut evidence suggests a purposeful disregard for human life, especially since this bill calls for a lack of fingerprinting.
Samantha Barrios, the Florida state director of the Giffords Center for Violence Intervention, said, “We are predicting that Florida will become a more insecure place and a vulnerable place with the approval of permitless carry.”
While supporters of the bill have called it a “public safety measure.”
Bill sponsor and State Representative Chuck Brannan said that it keeps the supposedly, that he knows of, “average law-abiding citizen” from having to having to go “through the hoops” of getting a permit to carry.
This specific way of thinking is what will cost Florida so many more innocent citizens, especially since Brannan doesn’t seem to understand that when talking about a topic as grave as guns, it’s not called ‘jumping through hoops; it’s called ‘safety.’
