Wares on display at a gun story. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Monitor)
Immigration may not be the only major policy issue that divides Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP leadership in the Florida Legislature.
The governor on Friday said that if legislation allowing for the open carry of firearms were to reach his desk this year, he would sign it into law.
“Would be great to see it hit my desk — Florida needs to join the overwhelming majority of states and protect this right… ,” the governor wrote.
DeSantis made those comments while retweeting a video clip on X showing Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey telling Luis Valdes, Florida State director of Gun Owners of America, that not only has he always supported open carry, but that he now believes more of the state’s 66 other sheriffs do as well.
This is not the first time DeSantis has indicated that if the Legislature passed such a bill, he would sign it into law. In an audio recording made by Valdes in 2023, DeSantis said “absolutely” when asked if he supported adding open carry to the bills then pushing permitless carry in the Florida Legislature. He added, though, “I don’t think they’re going to do it.”
“They” being the Republican leaders in the Legislature at that time, House Speaker Paul Renner and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo. The governor was correct that they did not support that legislation.
But it’s also true that DeSantis made no concerted effort to push such legislation. Now that he’s at odds with sitting Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez about immigration legislation, might he push them harder?
Albritton, made it clear last November that he opposes open carry, saying he has supported law enforcement his entire life “and I stand with them in opposition.”
By law enforcement, Albritton referred specifically to the Florida Sheriffs Association, the powerful lobbying group that has opposed open carry historically.
Minds changed?
But rank-and-file sheriffs across the state may be changing their minds.
“I would say that if you asked that question probably five or six years ago, that number would be a lot lower, but now I think the majority of them — I don’t know the exact number — but I think that the majority of them stand with me in that recognition that we need open carry,” Ivey told Valdes on Wednesday.
The Phoenix reached out to the Florida Sheriffs Association on Thursday night to clarify their stance but has not heard back.
Valdes believes that in the existing political environment, he can see DeSantis pushing rank and file Republicans in the Legislature to break away from party leadership on the issue.
“One of the issues that we have faced in getting open carry and any other pro-gun bill pushed through has been legislative leadership opposition to it and threatening rank and file lawmakers,” he said. “But I think now with the massive groundswell of support that the lawmakers as whole have seen with the people supporting Gov. DeSantis, I think that they might break away from leadership and introduce the bill and push it themselves.”
Other states
Although Florida is known as a state with few restrictions on firearms, it is one of only four that don’t allow open carry at all. The others are New York, Illinois, and parts of California. (In California, the sheriff of any county with a population under 200,000 people or the chief of police of a city within that county may issue licenses to carry loaded, exposed handguns, according to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association).
Hillsborough County Republican state Sen. Jay Collins said on the Bob Rose show on Friday morning that “open carry failed because it just didn’t have the votes in the Senate. … Everybody has their vote and there are some who just aren’t in line with that right now, so we’ll keep going back to it.”
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