Florida - Tuesday February 21, 2023: The Judiciary Committee of the Florida State House Tuesday overwhelming approved a bill that would allow qualified state residents to carry a concealed weapon without a permit or the firearm training currently required.
House Bill 543 was introduced by Republican Representative Chuck Brannan of Macclenny. "This bill will simply allow Floridians to carry their firearm without the red tape and expense of a government license," he said.
Democrats questioned the measure, Rep. Yvonne Hinson from Gainesville - “Every state that adopted permitless carry experienced a 22% increase in permitless carry. Has police or law enforcement made a plan to address this increase in homicide? Because its coming.”
Rep Brannan- “We can cherry pick statistics all day long. So, I don’t know the science behind the studies that your quoting but as a police officer I can tell you that an increase in crime can come from a lot of reasons.”
Rep. Bracy Davis, a Democrat from Ocoee - “Why are we appropriating money towards training if the entire premise of this bill is that training shouldn’t be mandatory to carry a gun in public?”
Rep. Brannan - “I don’t think we should have that requirement in law because this is a constitutional right, its not a privilege. We are certainly not discouraging it, but we’re not requiring it.”
Representative Dianne Hart, a Democrat from Tampa - “Currently, a concealed weapons permit is tied to their license, the officers know that they’re carrying. Do you think we’re going to be making our police less safe by not having that available to them to know?”
Rep. Brannan - “No. I don’t believe that and I think you had as recently as yesterday law enforcement professional with many years of experience that that is not going to effect the safety of their officers.”
The partisan vote fell along party lines. The Judiciary Committee approved the permitless carry bill 17 to 6.