Rare Failure: Fine’s Gun Bill Killed By Fellow Republican, Absent Lawmakers

TALLAHASSEE—Because two Republicans stepped out, and a third voted “no,” a conservative Florida bill that would have allowed guns on school buses and in university dorms died in its first Senate committee on Tuesday.

The final vote on Sen. Randy Fine’s SB 814 was 4 “nays” to 3 “ayes” in Tuesday’s Senate Criminal Justice Committee. The failure of a Republican bill in committee is exceedingly rare in the Florida Legislature, which enjoys a conservative supermajority.

Even rarer? 

The deciding “no” vote was another Republican, Sen. Ileana Garcia. Republican Senators Jennifer Bradley and Corey Simon were absent during the vote, allowing the three Democrats and Garcia to officially kill the bill. 

It was Fine’s final bill as a state lawmaker before he resigns his seat to pursue a congressional run.

If it had advanced, it would’ve allowed college students to carry their firearms on campus and in dorms. It would’ve also allowed the lawful possession—but not the storage—of guns in all pre-school through twelfth grade schools, school buses, and at bus stops. Fine filed it in response to the massive uptick in antisemitic incidents on college campuses following Hamas' massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.

“What I saw in colleges around the country was not that students were held hostage…it’s that the terrorists who did it to those students were protected by the universities,” Fine said in committee, minutes before his bill was killed. He referred to the thousands of anti-Israel protests on college campuses. One culminated in protesters at UCLA barring Jewish students from entering campus, and another in an assault on a student at the University of Pittsburgh.

Minority Leader Jason Pizzo, who opposed the bill but supported increased protections for vulnerable students, noted that he would shoot anyone who held his child hostage.

“Some of the behavior I’ve seen over the last year, I would shoot somebody if my kid was being held hostage like that. I absolutely would,” he said.

The measure would’ve been a massive step toward loosening gun restrictions in Florida, particularly as Gov. Ron DeSantis pushes lawmakers to lower the gun-buying age, greenlight open carry, and nix red flag laws. 

But SB 814 was shaping up to have a difficult time to begin with.

Fine’s measure had no companion bill in the House, and he had not secured a sponsor for his bill before his scheduled departure on March 31—meaning the bill would not have become law anyway. Despite this, it is highly unusual for Republicans to vote down a same-party member’s bill, especially one expanding gun rights.

But Fine, who’s publicly feuded with Gov. Ron DeSantis in the past, is known to clash with other lawmakers, including Republicans. Earlier in the session, Sen. Garcia told The Floridian that she “did not care” for Fine. 

On Tuesday, she killed his bill.

Fine is expected to win his special election race for Congressional District 6 on April 1. His official resignation from the state legislature goes into effect on March 31, but he announced Tuesday that SB 814 was the final bill he would present.