» The Florida CCW Crisis
By Vince on June 12, 2020
The Florida CCW Crisis
The Florida Concealed Weapons permit is handled by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and has been since its inception in 1987. Florida is a “shall issue” state. I’ve taken the definition from the Concealed Coalition website under their Gun Laws section verbatim, as I feel it is one of the best, easiest to understand descriptions I’ve read so far:
“Essentially, shall-issue laws mean that a state must issue a permit once the applicant has met the specific requirements outlined by the state. Unlike other states, areas with shall-issue laws have no requirements for demonstrating an immediate or justifiable reason to carry a weapon.
In other words, there is no judgment call on the part of administrators, bureaucrats, or law enforcement officials as to whether or not a person should be given a permit. In shall-issue states, once the requirements are met, the permit, by law, must be issued.”
For a more in-depth read on this go here: https://concealedcoalition.com/gun-laws/what-is-shall-issue/
Since the whole Covid-19 mess came about, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shut down public offices in order to curtail the spread Covid-19. This included the CCW offices of the Dept. Of Agriculture. So all 9 regional offices statewide have been shut down since March.
Nikki Fried is the present commissioner for the Dept. of Agriculture and 12th person to hold the office. She is also the first democrat in the office since 2001.
She is a self-proclaimed “activist” and no friend to the NRA in particular or firearms enthusiasts in general. Why she would want to put herself in this position as commissioner in charge of CCW for the state? I feel it is to bring the system down or make it more difficult to actually obtain a CCW. In other words, to add more “government/bureaucracy/red tape” to an already difficult situation. Look at the hoops one has to jump thru in other more restrictive states as an example. The state knows what’s good for the people, since the general populace is too ignorant to understand.
Since closing down the regional offices, she also shut down the online application process, blaming Gov. DeSantis. This is only partially true, as the application process does include fingerprints be submitted. The fingerprints MUST be done by a Law Enforcement agency…and they aren’t doing them because of the Covid-19 issue. A process should have been devised to circumvent this fingerprint issue and allow the process to work online. You can still mail the physical application paperwork in, sans the fingerprint card, but you will only be denied, so that was shut down as well.
As it happens the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) took exception to this and sued Ms. Fried on the grounds that Constitutional rights were being infringed. Since then she has been going back and forth with the media, blaming the NRA, who rightfully called her out on it. It is presently a media circus.
As of June 15, 2020, Ms. Fried is opening ONE office.
ONLY ONE!
In Tallahassee.
Probably one of the least populated areas of the entire state. The major population centers being Miami-Dade, Broward and West Palm Beach. They would also, by population density, be the one with the most applications.
It is felt that she is doing this in response to the lawsuit to try to assuage the public outcry, as she also opened the online portal.
No news, as of this writing, on the fingerprint issue.
So unless you travel to Tallahassee, you STILL can’t get it done. BTW it’s about an 8 hour drive from Miami to T-Town.
The office will open on June 15th.
It’s not news that this Covid-19 crisis and the civil unrest/protesting/rioting brought on by George Floyd’s criminal death has folks wanting to defend themselves, as record numbers of people are buying firearms. Every gun shop I know of in the Miami area is sold out or close to it and cannot get them fast enough from distributors to re-stock!
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, NICS, used by Florida when a firearm is purchased, is receiving over 9000 calls PER DAY! They never used to get 9000 calls per MONTH!
New gun buyers naturally want to get training in how to use their new weapons and this is highly recommended! They would also like a LEGAL way to carry the firearms they trained with. Right now they cannot get the CCW permit they need for this to happen.
This has been going since March of 2020. Let’s see how much longer it goes.