JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 543 on Monday which will soon allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a government-issued permit.
The new bill goes into effect on July 1 making Florida the 26th state to enact similar legislation.
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DeSantis signed the bill behind closed doors in front of a group of about 25 people, according to the Miami Herald. That’s a departure from other recent high-profile bill signings that DeSantis has done during televised news conferences.
“Constitutional Carry is in the books,” DeSantis wrote in a news release.
Right now, to carry a concealed weapon, someone in Florida would need to apply for a license and pass a criminal background check.
More than 2.5 million people had concealed weapons permits as of the end of last year, according to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Republicans say this is an effort to cut red tape in allowing law-abiding citizens to be able to carry firearms for protection.
Democrats criticized the proposals’ elimination of the training element that comes with getting a permit training that educates gun carriers on when it is and is not appropriate to wield the weapon for protection, as well as how to properly maintain and store a weapon.
Studies show that states which relax concealed carry restrictions see an increase in gun-related assaults.
Last year, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the average rate of assaults with firearms went up by nearly 10% across 36 states that eased their concealed carry laws.
“DeSantis has been pushing this extreme legislation, which one law enforcement official has described as a “recipe for disaster,” for months in an attempt to boost his national profile and win over the MAGA base, and has said that he supports calling a special session to pass further anti-gun safety legislation if he could secure the votes,” the Florida Democratic Party wrote in a news release after the bill was signed.
It’s also important to note that while some politicians have described this policy as “constitutional carry,” that’s only a political term, which implies that this policy is the only fair interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
According to the Miami Herald, Second Amendment advocates have also criticized the bill for not going far enough, saying that without allowing people to openly carry guns in public, the bill isn’t a true “constitutional carry.”
