Fl: Open Carry Event on Tampa Pier

ADulay, a regular contributor to opencarry.org, wrote about the open carry event that was held in Tampa over the weekend.   From opencarry.org:

For those of you who could not make this meeting, here’s a very quick synopsis of what you missed.

Just over 50 guys, all open carrying, showed up with fishing gear, donuts, coffee and a great attitude.

No police anywhere near the place. Lots of civilian people fishing and no problems with that at all.

Several questions from curious people and most, if not all were amazed at the laws in Florida. I can only assume that nobody made a “man with a gun call” to the police!

It was very hot out there, even in the shaded areas of the fishing pier.

ABC news did show up for some interviews and all in all, it was a very good meeting.

Hard to believe that the news didn’t make anything out of “50 armed men at fishing pier”. Nobody injured or taken hostage!!! Evidently CNN didn’t get the word!

Seriously, lots of really good people all with the same goal in mind. It was well worth the effort for me to get out of the house at 7am to make the meet up north.

For the record, no fish were harmed during the entire event!

AD

Florida is one of the five remaining states that ban the open carry of firearms in most public places.  Those five states are: California, New York, Illinois, South Carolina, and Florida. 

Florida’s ban on open carry is fairly recent.  When the shall issue concealed carry permit law was passed in 1987, Janet Reno, of Waco fame, President Clinton’s Attorney General, was the State Attorney for Dade County,  Florida.  The concealed carry permit bill included state pre-emption that eliminated the power of Florida cities to ban open carry inside of their borders.

Reno was incensed by this and mounted a campaign to ban open carry.   She succeeded.  The legislature, in an act quite similar to New York’s passage of the “Safe Act”, held a special session, bypassed the normal committee hearings, testimony, and citizen input, and banned open carry in most places.  Some would suggest that this “success” was instrumental in Janet Reno’s selection as Attorney General under President Bill Clinton.

Following the statist tactic of outlawing everything that is not allowed, open carry was banned everywhere except for a few exceptions.  One of those exceptions was to allow the open carry of firearms while fishing.  It is this exception in the law that Second Amendment activists are using to promote the restoration of open carry rights to Florida.

The next generation of Second Amendment supporters being raised in Florida.

Florida Carry organized the open carry event and is vigorously working toward restoring open carry in Florida.   In addition to open carry events, they have mounted court challenges and have had success in lobbying the legislature.

Texas is the most recent state to restore open carry freedoms.  Its new law will take effect on 1 January, 2016.

Florida  and South Carolina are the most likely candidates to restore open carry after Texas.  The Florida ban has been in effect for less than 30 years, and Florida has had significant success with its shall issue concealed carry law.  Governor Rick Scott has said that if an open carry bill passes the legislature, he will sign it.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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