The White House on Monday sharply criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing into law a bill that makes Florida the 26th state to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
DeSantis (R) signed the bill in a private ceremony Monday. “Constitutional Carry is in the books,” he said in a brief news release afterward.
In a subsequent statement, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre alluded to last week’s shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville in which six people were killed, including three 9-year-old students.
“It is shameful that so soon after another tragic school shooting, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a permitless concealed carry bill behind closed doors, which eliminates the need to get a license to carry a concealed weapon,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is the opposite of commonsense gun safety.”
She then cited three high-profile shootings that have occurred in Florida, including the 2018 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 17 people were killed; the 2016 attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where 49 people were killed and dozens more wounded; and a shooting in February that killed a television reporter, a 38-year-old woman and a 9-year-old girl.
“The people of Florida — who have paid a steep price for state and Congressional inaction on guns from Parkland to Pulse Nightclub to Pine Hills — deserve better,” Jean-Pierre said.
Florida had a firearm injury death rate of nearly 14 per 100,000 people in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, putting it roughly in the middle of state rankings for firearm deaths.
The Republican-majority Florida legislature last week passed the permitless-carry bill, which overturns a state law that requires that gun owners obtain licenses to carry concealed weapons. To obtain those licenses, individuals were required to complete training courses and pass background checks.
DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, touted the bill at a book-tour stop at a Georgia gun store.
“As of right now, there’s 25 states … that allow that,” DeSantis told the crowd Thursday, referring to permitless carry. “Well, in Florida next week, we’re going to make it 26.”
While the Nashville shooting renewed calls among Democrats to pass comprehensive gun-control measures, Republicans have doubled down on their promise to continue fighting for the rights of gun owners.
President Biden, who called gun violence in the United States an “international embarrassment” shortly after he took office, signed an executive order in March to increase background checks for gun sales. He also signed into law last summer the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expanded background checks, made investments in mental health services and expanded federal funding for state “crisis intervention programs,” including red-flag laws.
Biden, who has long called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, continued to urge Congress to pass stricter gun-control legislation, saying there is only so much he can achieve through executive orders.
“President Biden has been clear: too many lives are being ripped apart by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said Monday. “The President continues to call on Congress to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, require safe storage of firearms, eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and require background checks for all gun sales, and for state officials to take action at the state level.”
Ben Brasch contributed to this report.
