It’s about time.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, introduced a controversial measure Friday that would allow the more than 1.67 million Floridians with concealed-weapons licenses to openly carry handguns.

Steube’s bill (SB 140), which is filed for the 2017 legislative session, also would expand the places where people with concealed-weapons licenses are allowed to carry guns. It would allow them to be armed at legislative meetings; local government meetings; elementary and secondary schools; airport passenger terminals; and college and university campuses.

License holders would still be prohibited from carrying weapons at locations such as police stations, jails, courtrooms, polling places and most bars.

During the 2016 session, the open-carry measure was approved 80-38 in the House but failed to advance through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was chaired by former Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami. Diaz de la Portilla lost a re-election bid in November.

Yea, I hope I helped in some small way to ensure that it was a failed re-election bid.  But what we see here is permitted open carry, with the same failings of the Texas permitted open carry law.

Police don’t know how to enforce it, given that there is no stop and identify statute in Texas (and all stops must be so-called Terry stops anyway).  Florida is a stop and identify state, specifically for loitering and prowling.

So how does this apply to open carry?  What role does the permit play in all of this?  There is an easier way to do this, and it’s to make the state constitutional carry with legal open carry.  Stop taking half way measures.

Richard A. Nascak, executive director of Florida Carry, weighs in on the coming kerfuffle.

U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson’s viewpoint, published by the Sun Sentinel on Dec. 2, is a mini-case study on irrational fears. She flatly states that the proposals to legalize open, campus, and airport carry are a “notion that sends chills down my spine.”

The reason is revealed by her own admission. “It’s almost too easy to imagine the horrific effect and consequences that such laws would have in urban communities.” And there we have the source — her imagination. Unfortunately, Rep. Wilson’s imagination does not represent the experiences of 45 other states with regards to open carry.

In recent years, several states have legalized open carry of firearms — Oklahoma in 2012, and Texas in 2016 (adding handguns to the already lawful open carry of long guns). Similar concerns were voiced by officials in those states prior to open carry becoming lawful. For example, both Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan and Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty strongly opposed open carry citing a myriad of unsubstantiated reasons.

Likewise, the first vice president of the Dallas Police Association, Austin Police Chief Art Acevado, and a host of other Texas officials opposed open carry. Here in Florida, we hear the same rhetoric from the Florida Sheriffs Association and in particular Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri who, like his predecessor Jim Coats, threatened to shoot those seen openly carrying firearms.

So, what were the results of the legalization of open carry in Oklahoma and Texas? As pro-gun rights organizations predicted, much ado about nothing. Quoting from several media sources after passage:

•”We’ve not been responding to any calls, we’ve not had any complaints, we’ve not been taking reports. No, no issues here,” said Maj. Shannon Clark with the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department. “We have not seen anything alarming or attention-grabbing at all,” said Tulsa Police Officer Leland Ashley.

•”I think it proves our point just a little bit that good, responsible people don’t get in trouble with firearms and that thugs and hoodlums get into trouble with firearms every day,” said Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton.

•”We do not have anything interesting to report,” Cpl. Tracey Knight, spokeswoman for the Fort Worth Police Department, said last week. “Two calls so far, no issues. We have no concerns and we have had no problems.”

•”I said before this became law that I thought it was going to be much ado about nothing but I didn’t know it was going to be this much nothing,” Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said.

Rep. Wilson appears to be primarily concerned with black youths in urban areas. However as cited, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and other urban centers with a black youth population belie that concern. The fears are unsubstantiated.

So we get to the meat of the objection – she’s worried about those black boys carrying guns around.  But some of them do anyway, you just can’t see them.  Furthermore, I don’t object to peaceable men carrying guns.  If they pull them and threaten anyone, then that’s considered brandishing, and you can swear out a warrant for their arrest and have them charged.  Problem solved.

Unless of course the real problem is that you’re worried about undisciplined black boys being irresponsible with those guns and going to prison for it.  In this case, your problem doesn’t have a solution in the law.  You need to speak to the families and churches about that.

News from the misplaced Northern state:

Usually when the NRA and other gun groups say jump, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature says, “How high and how many guns should we carry when we do it?” But a few gun fantasies are just a bridge too far for even some Floridians.

Yesterday, Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a Miami Republican and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, announced that bills to allow “open carry” and another that would allow guns in Florida airports are dead.

As chair, Diaz de la Portilla basically has the power to kill any bill that comes through the committee by refusing to bring it up for a hearing. Bills in the Florida Legislature must pass three committees before making their way to a vote before the full House and Senate. The open-carry bill had already passed in the full House earlier this month.

Open-carry laws allow gun owners to basically walk around with guns on themselves and totally visible to the public. In some states, that right has led to bizarre sights, such as people toting around large, high-powered machine guns inside Target and Starbucks locations.

Florida’s proposed law would have allowed those who already have a concealed-carry license to openly carry their guns. Since Florida’s concealed-carry license laws apply to only handguns, open carry would still not have applied to larger guns.

“Open carry is not going to happen; it’s done,” Diaz de la Portilla told reporters yesterday, according to the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau.

Diaz de la Portilla also killed a bill that would have allowed guns in airport terminals. Earlier this session, he dealt the same fate to a bill that would have allowed people to take their concealed weapons onto college campuses.

Gun-rights Republicans have tried several times in previous sessions to pass similar bills, but the efforts have almost always been killed in the Senate by more moderate Republicans.

This is the same thing that happened in South Carolina.  State Senator Larry Martin is head of the judiciary committee and single handedly killed open carry in S.C.

As for those moderate republicans, you mean communists, don’t you?  And as for the man who did this, Diaz de la Portilla, he seems rather proud of himself, doesn’t he?  Hey, that name … that sounds Hispanic.  I thought all of those Hispanics were going to be conservative rather than anti-gun?  That’s what they told us, anyway.

So what are you Floridians going to do about Diaz de la Portilla?

Tampa Bay Times:

Hoping to override legislation that would relax existing state law by allowing concealed-weapons permit holders to visibly carry their weapons in public, the Florida Sheriffs Association announced its own measure Wednesday.

The proposal would protect concealed-carry permit holders from arrest if they accidentally display a firearm in public.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri — the FSA’s legislative chairman — says the measure clarifies Florida laws and diminishes the call to legalize open carry.

“The way we crafted this proposal is airtight and provides a fix,” Gualtieri said. “It states that no law-abiding, concealed-carry holder will ever face any sanctions for inadvertently exposing their gun.”

Gualtieri said the proposal is presented as an alternative to open-carry legislation bills and would help solve the “gotcha law” problem if someone’s gun was accidentally visible.

The proposal would require a person to intentionally and deliberately — “in a clear and obvious manner,” Gualtieri said — violate concealed-carry laws before they can be arrested.

The proposal also enforces a requirement that lets people explain circumstances surrounding their guns being accidentally exposed. If for some reason a concealed-carry holder is arrested, and it’s later proved their gun was exposed accidentally, the proposal calls for immediate expunction of the incident from their record.

“We don’t think it’s necessary to go from where we are today to full open carry,” Gualtieri said.

“The purpose of this is to solidly protect concealed-carry holders — I fully support everyone’s right to (lawfully) concealed carry. … We’re offering a solution so that people with concealed-carry permits aren’t going to get in trouble for something they shouldn’t get in trouble for.”

First, law enforcement has absolutely no business advocating one law or criticizing another.  It isn’t any of their business, any more than it’s the business of, say, the local utility to weigh in on whether something like open carry should be legal.

Second, accidental exposure of a weapon isn’t the only problem associated with open carry.  In a hot state like Florida, there are other reasons for open carry, like sweating your weapon when you are carrying IWB, rubbing your flesh raw when walking with IWB carry, etc.

Third, as we’ve discussed many times before, as a [sometimes] open carrier who lives in a traditional open carry state, the problems law enforcement allege to exist with open carry simply do not obtain.  They’re misleading you.  It isn’t the big deal they say it is, and blood doesn’t run in the streets.

Fourth (and this is perhaps the saddest thing we learn from the report), accidental exposure of a weapon is indeed an issue, and the Florida Sheriff’s association knows it to be so.  That’s the only reason they have proposed this as substitute legislation.  They want to placate weapons carriers, and they know that wasting court time for a shirt lifting in the wind is silly.  Thus, they’ve been down this road before.  They know all about arresting people for silly accidents that have no affect on anyone.

And they waited this long to do anything about it, and only proposed this law in an attempt to deflate open carry rights.  How disgraceful.  How absolutely contemptible.

Take Action:

To: Florida Commission on Tourism and the Florida tourism industry

Florida is a favorite vacation destination for many families. But the state is now considering giving gun owners with concealed-carry permits the right to openly carry their firearms anywhere they want in public. Please stop the open-carry bill from moving forward, because families don’t want to vacation in a state where people are openly carrying their weapons.

Sincerely,

[Your name here]

Oh bullshit.  Open carry was commonplace with the bus drivers (and others in Wyoming) when we visited Jackson Hole for a week last winter.  There were plenty of families there, and women, children and effete men didn’t run for cover screaming, regardless of what the “Moms Rising” want you to think.

Hey, now that I think about it, given South Carolina State Senator Larry Martin’s opposition to S.C. open carry based on tourism in Charleston, he thinks just like a “Mom Rising.”  Or effete man.  Because he is.  An effete man, that is.

Jacksonville.com:

Count Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams among the overwhelming majority of county sheriffs who said they oppose a measure that would allow concealed carry permit holders to openly carry firearms in Florida.

The Florida Sheriffs Association provided results of an email vote on the issue, as reported by the News Service of Florida, that resulted in 47 sheriffs saying they oppose the proposal, 10 saying they support it, five abstaining from a vote and five couldn’t be reached.

A spokeswoman for Williams confirmed today that he voted with the majority.

A majority of the Florida Sheriffs Association opposes measures (SB 300 and HB 163) that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to openly carry guns. In an email vote between Friday and Monday afternoons, 47 of the state’s sheriffs opposed the bills, 10 were in favor, five abstained and five others could not be contacted. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, representing the association, said Thursday that a number of sheriffs are against the measures because of philosophical reasons or simply the concept. Gualtieri added that other opponents would prefer changes, such as a need for additional training of permit holders, a better definition of where people couldn’t openly carry guns and a requirement that openly displayed firearms are secured. “There is absolutely no requirement that it be carried in a holster,” Gualtieri said. “If someone is walking down the street, open-carry, with his .45(-caliber handgun) stuck in their back pocket, somebody could just come up and take it out of their pocket. That’s not safe.”

Bob Owens states:

A person acting in an otherwise normal, rational and law-abiding way should not be stopped merely because his shirt rode up, or was too tight, or she simply felt more comfortable carrying a firearm outside the waistband instead of concealed.

Perhaps if Florida law enforcement hadn’t abused existing laws to punish law-abiding concealed carriers who accidentally exposed their firearms I’d feel more sympathy for them, but they have… and so I don’t.

45 of the 50 states allow some form of open carry.

It is absurd that Florida does not.

Yes, it is absurd, but given Bob’s opposition to Texas open carry, frankly I’m not sure where he stands on the issue.  But abuse of concealed carriers isn’t the reason to support open carry, and I wouldn’t be more supportive of the Sheriff’s opposition to the proposed law under any circumstances.  Bob wants them to develop a more coherent case for their opposition, and I don’t think there is one to be developed.

So the Sheriffs are concerned about people taking guns from unsecure holsters (non-retention holsters or those not in positive control of their firearms, I guess)?  Well, this is a stupid concern and doesn’t represent a coherent case for opposition to the law.

It’s a concern for folks openly carrying, but not LEOs.  Since when does anyone oppose a proposed law that recognizes use and carry of a piece of property because a thief, larcenist or petty crook can steal your property?  That makes no sense.

Do we also oppose ownership of automobiles because criminals can steal them?  Sometimes people are responsible with their cars, and they still get stolen.  Sometimes they drop their keys in a parking lot and thus they get stolen.  We don’t change automobile ownership and use laws because someone drops their keys.  And to be sure, the easiest way to perpetrate a mass killing is with a car, instantaneously and without LEO intervention.

I think Bob should clarify his position on open carry.  I support it without reservation, and there is no coherent argument against its legality.  If Bob wants to clarify what this “coherent” opposition to the legality of open carry is, I’ll assess it.  As for the Florida Sheriffs, I don’t really care what they think.