Gun rights activists around the state of Florida will have to wait until the 2023 legislative session to see Constitutional Carry legislation possibly makes its way through the Republican-led legislature and ultimately to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk for his signature. The Floridian has confirmed the rumors circulating that incoming Speaker of the House, Paul Renner, would take up the gun measure when he takes control of the gavel next year, and not this year, as many Republicans around the state expected.
A source close to Speaker-designate Renner told The Floridian that Renner’s support for the 2nd Amendment was beyond reproach and that he looked forward to presenting a Constitutional Carry bill to Gov. DeSantis, if it were to be introduced and passed in the Florida Legislature next year.
Gov. Ron DeSantis support Constitutional Carry and has said that he would sign a similar gun bill that Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R) introduced prior to the beginning of the 2022 legislative session.
“The Legislature will get it done. I can’t tell you if it will be next week, six months, but I can tell you that before I am done as governor we will have a signature on that bill,” DeSantis, who is running for re-election this year, added.
Rep. Sabatini’s bill (HB 103) never had a chance in the Florida House of Representatives and would never had seen the light of day.
Why?
Sabatini’s bill was sound, the problem was that he was the bill sponsor.
According to a Senate staffer who asked that we keep his or her identity concealed for this story, even if Sabatini’s bill would have been given a second look during the now-concluded legislative session and subsequent special sessions, there was no way Sabatini’s name would have been allowed to be on any bill introduced in both the House and the Senate.
The staffer added that if Constitutional Carry were to have been addressed earlier this year, both the House and Senate would have found different sponsors, perhaps three of the bill's cosponsors—Reps. David Borrero, Jason Fischer, Spencer Roach—and would have scrapped the Sabatini bill.
Sabatini’s fall from grace in the Florida Legislature has been well documented, as the Conservative firebrand has taken a torch to Republican leadership and to fellow Conservative and moderate-Republican colleagues in the state legislature.
To Sabatini, who recently voted alongside Progressive Rep. Anna Eskamani against the recently-signed DeSantis “Freedom First” state budget, has called everyone a “RINO” fand has not held back his harsh criticism against even the staunchest conservatives in the legislature. Sabatini was recently labeled a "RINO" himself by his congressional opponent, Cory Mills, after he voted against DeSantis' budget.
Former NRA President Marion Hammer wrote a scathing email calling out Sabatini’s past attacks against fellow Republicans for their alleged refusal to pass along his Constitutional Carry bill.
Hammer insisted that Sabatini’s bill was not heard because the conservative legislator “never requested to have the bill heard in committee and never secured a Senate companion bill” because he “did not bother to get a companion bill filed in the (Florida) Senate.”
Sabatini’s bill was dead on arrival because he didn’t get a Senate sponsor.
