DeSantis Says Florida State Guard Will Receive Weapons Training

MIAMI—During a press conference to discuss the 2022 Python Challenge in West Miami-Dade County, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the new Florida State Guard will be receiving similar training to Florida National Guardsmen, including weapons training.

Gov. DeSantis said that the State Guard, which was created to complement the existing Florida National Guard, “will go through training and they will have to be trained for weapons or whatever there are going to do.”

"So they will go through training and they will have to be trained for weapons or whatever they're going to do. It'll really be no different than how the National Guard functions. It's just the difference will be we will be able to control the administrative of it and they will not be able to be mobilized by Washington,” said Gov. DeSantis.

DeSantis did not elude to what kind of weapons, but we can only assume that those weapons will be firearms. DeSantis also said that money was already in place to fund 400 state guardsmen, but that the state did not have the “ability to do like military retirements at the state level” and would pay out when the guardsmen were on drill, or get called up for duty.

The new state guard was created to ensure Florida had the needed state-level resources in the case of a national disaster if and when they call up the Florida National Guard by deploying the troops around the country, and overseas.

Earlier this year, DeSantis rejected President Joe Biden’s request of him to send the Florida National Guard to Washington, D.C. on a security detail assignment for the State of the Union Address.

“There will be no Florida National Guard sent to D.C. for Biden's State of the Union,” stated Gov. DeSantis.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried denounced DeSantis’ rebuke of President Biden’s request, expressing her disgust with DeSantis for sending law enforcement to the southern border to help with the border crisis and not sending the National Guard to protect President Biden.

“I'm so disgusted. You know, we was willing to spend $1.6 million to send our law enforcement to the southern border. But when the President of the United States is asking for National Guard's members to come up to DC to protect the president to protect our capitol to protect our members of Congress, and he says no. I mean, how unpatriotic is that? You know, when your president calls you to answer, I don't care if you're a Democrat. I don't care if you're Republican, but we are supposed to be the United States of America, and he is unwilling to protect our democracy and unwilling to protect our president. Shame on dissenters,” said Commissioner Nikki Fried.