PALMETTO, Fla. (WFLA) — The Florida legislature is contemplating a number of payments that might ease present gun restrictions statewide. Throughout a cease at SeaPort Manatee, the governor mentioned his push to loosen present gun legal guidelines.
“I might say I am vindicating individuals’s constitutional 2nd Modification rights,” DeSantis stated.
The governor backs Home Invoice 759 which might decrease the age from 21 to 18 to purchase a long-gun or rifle. The invoice is at present within the committee stage earlier than it reaches the ground.
“You’ve got some 20-year-old marine be on the market carrying a firearm in Fallujah, again the place I served again within the day, and so they come right here, and so they cannot buy a rifle to go looking or one thing like that. It is not one thing that’s in step with due course of,” DeSantis stated.
It was a regulation put in place following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty mass taking pictures in Parkland, earlier than the governor was in workplace. Republicans simply superior the invoice in the home prison justice subcommittee this week.
Luis Valdes with Gun House owners of America spoke to the committee in favor of them transferring the invoice ahead.
“The parkland state of affairs was an abject failure of presidency, not gun management. Gun management does not resolve something,” Valdes stated.
Fiona Shannon with the League of Girls Voters opposes the invoice.
“Science and customary sense inform us the human mind isn’t absolutely developed at 18. Younger adults are extra impulsive, extra vulnerable to dangerous habits. And in some circumstances, extra vulnerable to radicalization,” Shannon stated.
Democrats on the committee opposed the invoice however it nonetheless superior.
The governor additionally helps Home Invoice 31 which might permit open carry.
“Should you take your jacket off and put your jacket on and you’ve got a firearm in your holster, someway you might be prosecuted for that as a result of it is ‘open carry’ and it does not make sense,” DeSantis stated.
There have been proposed modifications to ease restrictions earlier than. Oftentimes, they’ve stalled or failed as a result of state senators weren’t on board.
Republican State Senate President Ben Albritton, who represents a portion of Polk and Hardee counties, has beforehand opposed an open carry regulation and continues to be developing with a call on whether or not to help lowering the age to buy an extended gun.
This isn’t the primary time the governor has publicly advocated for relieving restrictions. In 2023, the governor signed a invoice into regulation permitting some Floridians to hold a hid weapon with no allow.
The governor was in Manatee County on Friday to announce $2 million in state grant funding for SeaPort Manatee. It is to assist with paving roads and stormwater tasks whereas the port works to increase.
