PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Re-committed to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 6, 2024
Florida Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, files bill that would allow concealed weapons on college campuses :: 08/05/2015
State Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, on Monday filed a bill for the 2016 legislative session to allow concealed weapons on college campuses.
"I feel very strongly about Americans and Floridians' Second Amendment rights, and that shouldn't stop at school," Steube said. "We've seen time and time again, these shootings on campuses where people can't protect themselves."
It's a bill identical to one he filed in the 2015 session that had gotten solidly through all House committees before dying in the Senate. The identical Senate version died in the Judiciary Committee after more than a month. Steube blamed the committee's chair, Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, for refusing to call a vote.
"It would've passed," Steube said. "The Senate bill's sponsor told me the votes were there."
The bill would take college and university campuses off a list of locations where those with concealed carry permits cannot carry their firearms. Other locations where firearms are banned regardless of concealed carry permits include courthouses, detention facilities, governing body meetings, elementary and secondary schools and bars.
The bill received non-unanimous but bipartisan support in House committees, but heavy blowback from both college officials and college law enforcement leaders, such as Linda Stump-Kurnick, chief of police at the University of Florida, who testified in front of a House committee in March that voted in favor of the bill.
"How my job will change significantly is if there is someone who has a concern -- male or female, age doesn't matter -- if they have a concern that somebody has a weapon on campus and
they feel threatened by that, unless that person is an immediate and overt threat to that person ... I will have no probable cause without this in place to go up and ask a person if they have a weapon on campus," she said.
Steube, who is the son of Manatee County Sheriff Brad Steube, said law enforcement goes through extensive training and is expected to work around the concealed carry permit in other areas, and a college campus should be no different.
"They argued that they can't tell the good guy from the bad guy," Steube said. "This is what they're trained to do."
Steube also cited concerns with rampant sexual assaults on college campuses, saying women with concealed carry permits shouldn't be deprived from protections they might typically have just because they're leaving a classroom. Sen. Diaz de la Portilla will remain chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2016.
http://www.bradenton.com/2015/08/04/5924875_florida-rep-greg-steube-r-sarasota.html?rh=1
