{"id":29570,"date":"2023-01-31T11:42:04","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T16:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=29570"},"modified":"2023-01-31T11:42:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T16:42:09","slug":"lakeland-mass-shooting-shines-spotlight-on-ron-desantis-gun-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/01\/31\/lakeland-mass-shooting-shines-spotlight-on-ron-desantis-gun-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland Mass Shooting Shines Spotlight on Ron DeSantis’ Gun Views"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Florida’s state legislature introduced a bill Monday that would allow citizens to carry a concealed firearm without a permit, the same day 10 people were injured in a drive-by shooting in Lakeland, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The proposed gun permit bill, outlined by Florida House Speaker and Republican Paul Renner and endorsed by the Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA), is also referred to as a “constitutional carry” bill by its supporters and has been a long-promised initiative by Florida Governor\u00a0Ron DeSantis, according to a report from the\u00a0Tallahassee Democrat<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the bill is passed by the GOP-controlled legislature, Florida would become the 26th state to allow permit-less concealed carrying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill was introduced just hours before four people opened fire and injured 10 in a drive-by shooting in Lakeland, Florida, according to the Lakeland Police Department. Police Chief Sammy Taylor told reporters in a press briefing Monday night that all of the victims were males age 20 to 35, two of whom receiving treatment in the hospital for critical injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on November 19, 2022. In the inset, a sign is held by a gun-control advocate at the March for Our Lives rally in Parkland, Florida, on June 11, 2022. DeSantis on Monday was grilled for his support of carrying without a permit after a mass shooting in Lakeland, Florida, left 10 injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats and advocates reignited calls for increased gun control Monday night in light of the mass shooting, pointing fingers at DeSantis for wanting to expand gun rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A mass shooting in Lakeland, Florida has left 10 people injured,” wrote New York Representative Ritchie Torres<\/a> on Twitter<\/a>. “Yet Ron DeSantis wants people to freely carry firearms without a permit, which will cause even more guns to fall into the hands of even more mass shooters.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Hogg<\/a>, founder of the youth-led movement March for Our Lives, also tweeted about the shooting in Lakeland, writing, “Maybe let’s not weaken gun laws by passing permitless carry in Florida. Just a thought.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalist Brian Krassenstein<\/a> noted in his tweet Monday night that Florida’s gun permit bill was also introduced just over two weeks before the five-year anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured 17 others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“DeSantis is pathetic!” Krassenstein added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Florida governor has long promised to pass a constitutional carry bill in his state, telling reporters at a press conference in May 2022, “I can tell you before I am done as governor, we will have a signature on that bill,” reported the Democrat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz has also advocated for a permit-less concealed carry bill, tweeting in November 2022, “Florida should be a Constitutional Carry state!” At the time, Gaetz received flak from gun-control advocate Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jamie in the 2018 Parkland shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guttenberg reiterated his criticism for the permit-less carry bill on Monday, tweeting alongside a link to an ABC News story about the Lakeland shooting: “THIS IS NOT FREEDOM.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a press conference on Monday, Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis, president of FSA, defended the permit-less carry bill when asked how law enforcement would be able to tell if citizens with criminal backgrounds had access to firearms without requiring a permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We know someone is a criminal when they commit a criminal act,” Nienhuis said, according to a clip of the press briefing posted to Twitter by the gun-control advocacy group Giffords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Whether they have a permit or not, they may or may not be a criminal, those two things are not mutually exclusive,” Nienhuis added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida’s state legislature introduced a bill Monday that would allow citizens to carry a concealed firearm without a permit, the same day 10 people were injured in a drive-by shooting in Lakeland,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[4410],"class_list":["post-29570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-lakeland-mass-shooting-shines-spotlight-on-ron-desantis-gun-views"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}