With Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is warning anyone who might see the storm as an opportunity to loot from businesses and unoccupied homes: doing so could be hazardous to their own life and limbs. 

Speaking on Tuesday at a briefing , DeSantis said, ““If you go into somebody’s house after the storm passes, think that you’re going to be able to commit crimes, you’re going to get in really serious trouble. And quite frankly, you don’t know what’s behind that door in a Second Amendment state.”

As Florida Politics notes, it’s not the first time the governor has reminded would-be looters that the right to keep and bear arms is exercised by an awful lot of Floridians. 

Variations of this theme are a staple of storm press conferences for DeSantis, and Hurricane Milton continues the tradition familiar to Floridians who were around for 2023’s Hurricane Idalia and 2022’s Hurricane Ian.

“This part of Florida, you’ve got a lot of advocates and some proponents of the Second Amendment. And I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters, and I would say it’s probably here, ‘You loot, we shoot.’ You never know what’s behind that door,” DeSantis said in Perry in 2023. 

Speaking near Fort Myers in the leveled community of Matlacha in 2022, he told a similar story.

“They boarded up all the businesses, and there are people that wrote on their plywood, ‘you loot, we shoot,’” DeSantis said. “At the end of the day, we are not going to allow lawlessness to take advantage of this situation. We are a law-and-order state, and this is a law-and-order community, so do not think that you’re going to go take advantage of people who’ve suffered misfortune.”

DeSantis’s previous warnings didn’t stop looters completely, but they may very well have had an impact. No widespread looting was reported in the wake of Hurricane Idalia, but more than two dozen people were arrested in Lee County, Florida after Hurricane Ian roared ashore two years ago. 

With mandatory evacuation orders being posted in counties along Hurricane Milton’s expected path, looters might think they don’t have to fear running into any armed citizens. Earlier today CNN reporter Paul Murphy shared a particularly dire admonition from one local police chief to those thinking about ignoring the calls to evacuate. 

“If you stay, they can not get you. They were able to do some water rescues in Helene; that will not happen with Milton,” began Murphy. “Once the winds, which are forecasted to start here at tropical storm force gusts, once they start tomorrow at around 8 a.m., he expects that by noon, they’re not going to be able — they’re going to have to evacuate the island themselves. So starting at noon tomorrow, if you’re here, there will not be help coming for you. You are on your own.”

“And he’s made that very clear. It’s that same message we’re hearing from officials: Write your name, write your number, write someone else’s number, your date of birth on you,” he concluded. “Because when they come looking for you, they want to know who to contact because you decided to stay.”

Even with those warnings, some residents are inevitably going to decide to ride out the hurricane, which means that any looters could indeed run into an armed citizen intent on protecting their lives and property after the winds and rain subside. 

DeSantis is right to warn folks it’s a bad idea to think Milton gives them an opportunity to do a little five-fingered discount shopping from businesses and homes. My only suggestion to the governor is that he should also remind local governments that a declaration of a state of emergency does not give them the authority to suspend the Second Amendment, as we saw in the town of Okeechobee a couple of weeks ago. I know DeSantis has already specifically stated that his declaration does not empower Florida’s Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie to suspend gun sales or the lawful carrying of firearms, but another warning to localities wouldn’t hurt.