Well here we are in another year, same old lip service, same old denial of our self-defense rights.
30 states have legal open carry of handguns with NO carry license required! 15 other states have open carry legal with a license. So why is Florida so different than 45 other states?
Adapted from a photo by Alan Levine
(Open Carry Go To Jail and pistol graphics added by me)
Many Republican NRA A+ members in the Florida Senate and House (we still have a few good guys like Senator Greg Steube and a handful of others) would prefer you go to jail for not covering up your pistol, even if licensed to carry, rather than change the law!
They want you to fumble with your clothing getting to your concealed pistol and risk getting shot, rather than having faster access to your gun in an emergency.
They don't want your visible gun to deter crime, they want you to have to use your gun to shoot someone.
Those politicians talk a good game of supporting your rights, while at the same time denying them.
Republican Senate President Joe Negron packed his Judiciary Committee with a majority of anti-gun rights senators, who enjoy shooting down gun bills that legalize open carry, campus carry, and airport carry (most states have legal airport carry in non-sterile areas).
The NRA keeps giving those hypocrites A+ ratings. Go figure. I'm still scratching my head on that one.
They're hypocrites because they talk a good game of supporting the Second Amendment, while at the same time they deliberately keep on the books a law that lets police kidnap you and put you behind bars like a caged animal away from your family.
And for what crime? For walking down the street with a holstered pistol in view, while you have your license to carry tucked in your wallet.
That folks, is tyranny. It is immoral. It is evil. It is shameful.
There are tourists that come from all 49 other states to Atlanta and from countries all over the world. All to a state, Georgia, where open carry of a pistol is legal with a weapons license. There has been no mass panic and fleeing of tourists from public places where folks like me occasionally carry a visible holstered pistol.
The tourist argument against open carry in Florida is B.S.
Where are the Florida tourists going to flee to? Atlanta? Or will they all stay in Europe, Asia, and Africa? Again, Bravo Sierra.
The bottom line is that the Florida RINOs despise liberty. They don't trust you to carry your handgun openly. They believe the hogwash from police and other law-enforcement officials that open carry would cause problems for their officers.
Never mind that such problems are not a problem in 45 other states.
Folks, Florida is just a state. It's not an alien planet. The citizens and tourists there have no major differences to those in any other state. Certainly not enough to warrant trampling on self-defense rights, where the exercise of such is often a matter of life or death.
What can you do? Other than petition your lawmakers to get on the Liberty Train...
It is currently legal in Florida to wear hats and shirts that state you are armed. "Printing" is also currently legal in Florida. You can wear a large pistol on your side and let it bulge all you want from under your clothing. They can't take away your First Amendment Rights, can they?
Gov. Scott's Key Issues
ReplyDeleteGovernor Scott, how about coming out for ending the Second Amendment infringement of having citizens arrested for carrying their holstered pistols in a visible fashion? Your own Florida statistics prove licensed-to-carry citizens are SIX TIMES more LAW-ABIDING than the police, and they are allowed to open carry.
I suppose the Florida news media is just too lazy to ask him about that.