The Federalist recounts some of the furious reactions when Florida became the 26th state to adopt constitutional carry in July 1, 2023:
“Following mass shootings, DeSantis signs permitless carry bill,” one NBC News headline complained. In the article, the producer of “The Rachel Maddow Show” sneered at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for trading what he dubbed “modest gun safeguards” for an “extreme” and “controversial” law. Forbes [quoted] gun control groups including Giffords claiming the pro-Second Amendment law is “dangerous” and “will drive gun violence up and further jeopardize the safety of our families and communities”…“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,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote. “This is the opposite of common sense gun safety. 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.”
“Common sense gun safety.” That’s another one of those BS tell-tale deceitful phrases—like “gender-affirming care” and “reproductive freedom” that should start your ethics alarms ringing. But I digress..
Well waddya know! Florida’s biggest cities saw a significant decrease in violent crimes, including shootings, in 2023. Murders and homicides fell 6 percent in 2023 from the previous 2022 in Jacksonville. Miami. had 49 homicides in 2022, nut last year only 31, the least ever on record. Miami also experienced a 34% in non-fatal shootings 124 fewer “non-contact” shootings than in 2022.
There are lots of factors that could explain these pleasant developments, but you can bet that pro-gun advocates will cite the statistics as “proof” that more legal guns prevent crime and keep citizens safer, not the other way around. They already estimate that “good guys with guns”stop an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, which, of course, depends on who’s doing the estimating.
It would be welcome, and lead to more productive debates about gun policies and crimes if the gun-hating left would see the Florida statistics and simply admit, “We were wrong. I guess we don’t understand the relationship between guns, crime and violence as well as we thought.” Then there would be more reason to take their arguments seriously.
Nah. Facts don’t matter to activists and ideologues, on either side of the partisan divide. Nothing will make them change their minds. Integrity is usually missing from the equation, as is a sincere desire and an open mind to determine the truth.
And that, as they say, is why we can’t have nice things.
Ethics Alarms 
It isn’t an iron-clad argument, but the fact is, people have been buying guns in record numbers. Recent surveys indicate that about 50% of the households in the US have a firearm now and that is a VAST increase over 2000.
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/poll-gun-ownership-reaches-record-high-american-electorate-rcna126037
What is clear is that you can’t point to ‘Military Style Weapons’ as causes of violent crime. There is an inverse relationship there.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990/
You can see that gun sales continue at a record pace.
https://www.safehome.org/data/firearms-guns-statistics/
What is more interesting is that the low gun sales states seem to be the ones with big murder problems. So, inverse relationship there.
So, correlation isn’t necessarily causation, but inverse correlation is almost never causation.
There was a spike in violent crime in 2021. We have had defunding of police, prosecutors who won’t jail violent criminals and let violent criminals out without bail. These SHOULD lead to more violent crime. However, we have significant increases in firearms ownership and, possibly more importantly, legal Constitutional carry in 24 states*. This means more people have firearms and more people CARRYING firearms in public legally*. So, the drop in violent crime seems counterintutive based on law enforcement and judicial practices, but makes sense from a private firearms ownership perspective.
*Although 24 states have permitless Constitutional carry, it still remains illegal to carry a firearm withing 1000 yards of a school while permitlessly carrying a firearm. This includes your own property. Most permitless carrying people probably commit this felony numerous times/day without knowing it and without anyone knowing. Another victimless felony on the books.
It’s not clear to me how the new GFSZA of 1990 stands up through Untied States v. Lopez… Nor in light of 2A now being incorporated and afforded the same level of scrutiny as the rest of the BoR…
But I’m not volunteering to being a subject of the case either…
After Lopez, Congress re-passed the law stating that it only applies to guns that went through an interstate transaction at some time in the past. That voided the Lopez case according to the firearms attorneys I have seen.
Most/all? Constitutional Carry states still issue carry permits to allow reciprocity with other states. That makes the school felony void. To my knowledge as an Open Carry advocate, no one has been charged with that as the primary charge, it is a cherry on top of other felonies.
What happens next? Well, Florida’s gun laws become a nonevent, we just stop talking about them. The next opportunity in another state, the calls for ‘common-sense gun control’ will be back the same as before.
What voting law in Georgia? I don’t know what you’re referring to. Have you see the new voter suppression bill in North Carolina?
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You have to admit that the new laws in Georgia suppressed the hell out of voters there, who came out in record numbers in 2022.