Florida is debating whether to join states like Vermont, Arizona, Maine, New Hampshire, Indiana, Texas, and Utah, and become the 26th state to allow its citizens to carry firearms without a government permit. Since criminals and mass shooters tend to ignore paperwork, the law is a reasonable way to ensure lawful Floridians are able to defend themselves and their communities.
The outrage over the permitless carry bill is, as one expects, already hysterical, emotional, and largely fact-free. Read this column from the perpetually confused Wajahat Ali, who stresses the dangers of permitless carry by pointing to incidents that are wholly unrelated to the prospective law. Or take the Newtown Action Alliance, which argues that “constitutional carry” — the term Second Amendment advocates often use to describe permitless carry — isn’t a real thing because the “constitution didn’t give anyone the right to carry guns publicly without permits, background checks, or training.”
First off, “constitutional carry” doesn’t affect “background checks” in any way. All Floridians who purchase a gun, whether they plan to carry the firearm or not, fill out the same NICS forms and are subjected to the same criminal checks. Newtown knows this, but as with the “universal background check” canard, the claim is meant to create the perception that mass murderers would be allowed to stroll into Wal-Marts and pick up their machine guns without any FBI check.
Also, yes, the Second Amendment specifically protects the right of Americans to “carry” a gun. You remember the part that
