Florida has made absolutely no sense to me. It’s a pro-gun state with a Republican supermajority. In theory, even with a few anti-gun Republicans running around, gun rights should be a foregone legislative conclusion.
The problem is that it hasn’t been. Pro-Second Amendment bill after pro-Second Amendment bill have languished and died in the legislature, and for a number of reasons.
Most of them, though, are because supposedly pro-gun Republican lawmakers acted like anything but, and folks in the Sunshine State see at least one example as an outright betrayal.
Once praised as a Republican ally of gun owners, Florida Rep. Paul Renner now faces fierce criticism from pro-gun organizations who accuse him of betraying the Second Amendment. Since Renner announced his candidacy for governor, grassroots activists have begun examining his record more closely.
As Speaker of the Florida House from 2022 to 2024, Renner rose to the heights of state Republican leadership, yet his record has generated deep distrust among grassroots gun owners and some of the nation’s most principled pro-gun organizations.
Paul Renner first entered the Florida House of Representatives in 2015 after securing a special election victory. By 2022, he had climbed to the influential post of Speaker. Throughout his ascent, Renner positioned himself as a conservative committed to constitutional values and a reliable ally of Second Amendment advocates. His career, however, tells a more complicated story when examined through the lens of specific legislative battles.
Gun rights activists have been sounding the alarms about Renner since his 2018 vote in the wake of the Parkland tragedy. In response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, Renner voted for sweeping gun control legislation (Senate Bill 7026) that raised the minimum age to purchase rifles from 18 to 21 and created “red flag” laws empowering authorities to confiscate guns from people deemed dangerous. When pressed on this in 2023, Renner asserted it was “a flawed bill that contained provisions he opposed,” but, as activists point out, he nonetheless voted for a measure that curtailed Floridians’ rights.
One of Renner’s most contentious actions was his role in blocking open carry. In 2023, Rep. Mike Beltran filed an amendment to a permitless carry bill that would have allowed open carry. Renner’s leadership forced the amendment’s withdrawal, with Beltran stating it wasn’t “the right vehicle or the right time” to pass this amendment.
That whole “isn’t the right time” thing upset a whole lot of Florida gun rights activists. I know that for a fact.
Why wasn’t it the right time? Renner wrote a permitless carry bill, but it omitted open carry. That means it wasn’t a constitutional carry bill. Why he has such a problem with open carry is a mystery, but the truth of the matter is that Renner isn’t someone who is as pro-gun as he wants you to believe.
He supported the post-Parkland measures, as noted above, which were a sweeping infringement of gun rights in the state. It put Florida in the same camp with states like California and New York–a camp they were already in, thanks to prohibiting open carry, it should be noted–and the fact that lawmakers aren’t interested in repealing those laws even now is proof of just how stupid it was to vote for them in the first place.
I normally argue that there are generally three types of lawmakers. You have your anti-gun ones, obviously, but on the other side, you’ve got the pro-gun lawmakers and the anti-gun control ones.
The anti-gun control lawmakers are the ones you take when you’re not able to actually get any pro-gun movement. An effective anti-gun control legislator in a state like California is a treasure. In a state like Texas, they’re a pain.
Renner, however, doesn’t seem to be pro-gun, and he doesn’t fall into the anti-gun control camp, either. After all, he voted for gun control.
GOA’s Florida Director, Luis Valdes, notes a big part of the problem with Renner:
“You have a Republican House Speaker state that he and his Republican colleagues don’t have an ‘appetite’ to debate and vote on open carry. You have a Republican Senate President state that repealing the under-21 purchase ban is a ‘non-starter.’ Yet both have the nerve to campaign that they’re pro-gun,” said Luis Valdes, Florida state director of Gun Owners of America, in February.
“Florida lawmakers claim to be pro-gun, but year after year, they’ve refused to repeal the 1987 ban on open carry, leaving Floridians in the very anti-gun company of New York, Illinois, and California, where this is also prohibited,” said Erich Pratt, GOA’s senior vice president, in a written statement announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
Renner has had time to make this right. He’s got the power to make it right. He’s in a position to at least let the legislature vote on it.
He’s refused to do so, saying there’s no “appetite” for open carry.
Well, a court did what Renner couldn’t or wouldn’t do.
It falls on Florida voters to step up and take care of business. When they say there’s no “appetite” for pro-gun laws, remove them. When your state representative or senator won’t go on record supporting pro-gun laws, replace them.
Republicans throughout the nation need to be afraid for their jobs if they refuse to back the Second Amendment, and not just by opposing gun control. They need to step it up, especially in a state like Florida, where there’s no excuse at all.
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