Another Public Servant Doing What Is NOT In Their Constituents Best Interests

From Right To Bear Blog:

Open Carry Dealt Tragic Blow In This Republican State

A few weeks ago we reported on a bold (but constitutionally sound) Open Carry bill making its way through a few rounds of preliminary approvals.

Unfortunately for law abiding Floridians, which has consistently been quite red, they just saw their chances of getting an open carry bill squashed by an anti-gun Republican.

The bill was mainly aimed to minimize the effect of an accidental exposure of a concealed weapon; it also did allow for full, open carry throughout the state.

Bearing arms writes:

A powerful anti-gun Miami Republican has used his power as the chairman of a powerful Senate committee to singlehandedly crush the possibility of handgun open carry in Florida.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla said Tuesday evening a proposal allowing 1.5 million people with concealed weapons permits in Florida to openly carry handguns is officially dead for the 2016 session.

“Open carry is not going to happen; it’s done,” the Miami Republican senator told reporters.

Diaz de la Portilla had expressed growing reluctance for weeks about holding a hearing on SB 300, saying last week it was “on life support.”

It’s among three gun bills he’s killing this session by not granting them hearings in his committee, a powerful prerogative that committee chairman have.

Last month, Diaz de la Portilla said he wouldn’t hear a similarly controversial bill that would allow concealed-weapons permit-holders to carry concealed on public college and university campuses. Also Tuesday, he said he won’t hear a bill that would allow concealed weapons to be carried in Florida airport terminals. (It passed its first committee earlier in the day but it won’t be heard in the House, so it was essentially dead anyway.)

“On all of these gun bills, I don’t believe any of them are necessary,” Diaz de la Portilla said. “They could result in unintended consequences. I think we need to prioritize in our committee, as far as what we hear. We can’t hear every bill that’s referred to us.”

It’s unclear what the unintended consequences of protecting CCW holders from accidental exposure might be.

Was he concerned there would be a rash of CCW owners going out and brandishing their weapons because they were now protected by the law?

Newsflash for Portilla and his likeminded brethren; brandishing is entirely different than accidental exposure, everyone who sits through a class knows this.

Florida didn’t necessarily take a step backwards, but they sure as heck avoided taking a nice big step forward.