Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a law allowing Floridians to carry guns without a permit, a move that aims to appeal to gun-loving GOP primary voters even as Democrats warned it would increase violent crime.
DeSantis, who is gearing up to take on former President Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential election, has used the Florida legislative session to push for a policy victory that has attracted the party’s right wing. By signing the law, DeSantis fulfilled a campaign promise and joined the majority of US states that allow the carry of handguns without a permit.
“You don’t need a permission slip from the government to exercise your constitutional rights,” DeSantis told an audience at a gun store in suburban Atlanta last week, just days after a mass shooting at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, left six people dead, including three children.
DeSantis visited Adventure Outdoors, one of the largest gun shops on the East Coast, as part of a book tour billed as a warm-up for the presidential campaign.
Florida’s new law allows anyone over the age of 21 to carry a firearm without paying a fee or getting a permit from the state.
Some gun rights advocates remain angry with DeSantis, but he did not push for legislation allowing people to carry firearms. While DeSantis said he would support the measure, opposition from the Florida Sheriff’s Association — which supports the new warrantless law — led key lawmakers in the Florida Senate to oppose it.
Sign the law at obvious political risk. Permitless carry, while a key priority of the National Rifle Association and other gun advocates, is deeply unpopular with the general public and could be a key line of attack for Democrats if DeSantis secures the Republican nomination.
A 2021 Pew Research Center Survey found that only 20% of US adults support allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Even the majority of Republicans do not support the idea. Even in Republican-leaning Florida, the idea is unpopular. A survey last fall from Giffords, a gun control group, found 63% of Floridians opposed to carrying a permitless.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison noted DeSantis signed the legislation behind closed doors alongside NRA officials.
“DeSantis knows this legislation could be harmful to Florida families and that’s why he signed this bill without the usual fanfare,” Harrison said in a statement. “Make no mistake: DeSantis’ futile hunt for the MAGA 2024 base has proven just how extreme he wants to expand his national ambitions, even if it means ignoring the pleas of some law enforcement officials and putting the gun lobby on Floridians.”
Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.), who is now a senior adviser to Giffords, told HuffPost it was “a very, very dark day for all of us in Florida.”
“We know that by signing dangerous bills, they are making communities and children less safe,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “They put the interests of the most extreme wing of the party above the safety of our children and our community.”
Muscarel-Powell noted that studies show violent crime could increase by 10% or more after enactment of the permit-less carry law, and that Florida denied gun permits to 7,000 people between July 1, 2021 and June 31, 2022.
Gun advocates, especially those aligned with Trump, criticized DeSantis for not pushing more aggressively for open carry laws.
“It would be a shame if Ron DeSantis signed this Milquetoast Counterfeit Carry bill,” Sean Themea, chief of staff at the libertarian group Young Americans for Liberty, said. against Florida Politics. “By signing a bill that keeps open-carry illegal, DeSantis is putting political expediency before the Second Amendment rights of Floridians. This is an opportunity for him to stand up to the RINOs in his own legislature and demand a clean bill. If he can’t do it in his own state, how can gun owners can they be trusted to do it on a national level?
After an appearance at a Georgia gun shop last week, DeSantis toward gun rights advocate he will consider calling a special session of the legislature to pass the open law “if I can get the votes.”
The National Rifle Association, however, appears to be pleased with the law DeSantis signed on Monday.
“This NRA-led initiative empowers Floridians to exercise their Second Amendment rights without unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, asserting their fundamental right to self-defense,” Randy Kozuch, interim executive director of the group’s lobbying arm, said. told Fox News.
Gun owners have been a core part of Trump’s political base since the 2016 election, when the NRA issued the earliest endorsement in history supporting the former president after he secured the GOP presidential nomination.