Politics
Putnam: Vast Majority of Concealed Weapons Permit-Holders Law-Abiding
Around the State
Credit: Neil Dorgan - Flickr
“Florida has a strong tradition in upholding Second Amendment rights,” Putnam told reporters in his Capitol office. “The Florida Legislature has been very clear about that."
Putnam’s comments come in the wake of the publicity surrounding the mass theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., and a call by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for probable GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Obama to outline plans for more effective gun control in the U.S.
“There continues to be an extraordinary small number of concealed weapons license holders who break the law -- (for the most part) they are overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens who wish to be given a concealed weapons permit.”
Bloomberg has even gone so far as saying on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” on Monday that police officers should strike until the federal government acts on gun control.
Meanwhile, Florida has 952,415 active permits for concealed weapons and is on pace to surpass the 1 million mark in six weeks to two months, Putnam said.
Putnam said he knows that the number of permit holders who violate the law is low. Since 1987, the state has revoked 6,234 permits due to criminal offenses, of which 168 permits had been revoked for gun-related crimes, according to state records.
Florida was the first state to approve the shall-issue concealed weapons law in 1987. Almost anyone who hasn’t been convicted of a violent crime can qualify for a weapons license.
Since 1987, the state has issued 2.26 million permits. In that time, 15,500 applications have been revoked, 5,190 due to prior criminal history. The rest were due to incomplete applications.
The state keeps private the list of registered concealed weapons permits and the department is notified when an individual has a license revoked as a result of a felony conviction, Putnam said.
According to state records, a license can be revoked when a licensee has been found guilty of, had adjudication of guilt withheld for, or had imposition of sentence suspended for one or more crimes of violence within the preceding three years.
A license can be suspended when a licensee is arrested or formally charged with a felony; is issued an injunction that restrains him or her from committing acts of domestic violence or acts of repeat violence; sustains a physical disability that makes handling a weapon safely impossible or has been committed to a mental institution.
Because of a spike in permit applications over the past two years, with up to 50,000 permits being issued a month, Putnam’s office hired nearly 50 full-time employees to process the applications.
State legislators dropped the price for a permit from $85 to $70 earlier this year.
Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 215-9889.
Comments (9)
PATHETIC.
It makes no sense to me why anti-gun [filtered word]s blame all tragedies like Colorado on GUNS. This “carrot top” was clearly insane and we continue to profile him as a “right wing conspirator”. It is crazy to think or even attempt to change the publics mind about these incidents.
Guns in the hands of the law abiding people is our Constitutional right. Guns in the hands of the terrorist, is like guns in the hands of those who care less about the Constitution or our rights. Why do we make up LAWS that only the law abider pays attention to? The LAWLESS people will exist with or without laws and they will kill, murder, rape and rob no matter how many laws congress wants to create. This is not about GUNS or LAWS, it is a fact of life and our society has a hard time understanding, and…our politicians have no common sense about this and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.
There are about 11.2 million voters in Florida. Voter fraud cases have averaged about 20/year over the last five years. That means that about 0.0002% of voter were taken action against over that five year period. I don't have data back to 1987 (and extrapolations are always quesstionable), but if the average remained about the same, then that percentage would be around 0.0010%, or around seven times lower than the criminal actions of concealed-carry gun owners for the same timeframe.
So, using this type of logic, if voter fraud is a big deal, then criminal violations by concealed-carry gun owners must be a HUGE issue, correct?
Now, I'm a gun owner, have been for over 50 years, and once belonged to the NRA back when they were about hunting and guns. But we need to be able to have an actual dialogue about legitimate gun control. Even Judge Scalia recognizes that:
"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." [Scalia; DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER]
Our gun laws are well thought out, well enforced, and mis-use in close to non-existent. I do believe that we need to KEEP our present laws - SEMI-AUTOMATIC simply means that a gun uses a MAGAZINE for loading, as opposed to guns with cylindrical barrels.
FULLY AUTOMATIC = NO
SEMI AUTOMATIC = YES
To 'borrow' a phrase, "DON'T MESS WITH FLORIDA"!
I wonder what the percentages are for all known gun owners in the state, concealed carry permitted or not? Then, of course, there's all the unknown gun owners that don't mishandle their weapons (also the VAST majority).
People use bats and cars to kill people but nobody seeks to limit our ability to drive to the baseball game.
The ONLY people gun laws affect are the law-abiding. Criminals or lunatics will find a way if they want one. Bloomberg is full of it if he thinks he can better protect the law-abiding than they can protect themselves.
Every time a bill is passed. "We the People" lose either our rights, our freedom or our property. All laws fall into one or more of those three categories.
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