A shooting in downtown Orlando on Halloween night left two people dead and six others injured, and police have taken a 17-year-old into custody after officers saw him shooting a gun.
Authorities haven’t released the suspect’s name or many details, though Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith did say the teen was arrested for grand theft last year.
Regardless of the suspect’s criminal history, given his age he was too young to be lawfully carrying a firearm on the streets of Orlando. But that fact didn’t stop Rep. Maxwell Frost, a co-founder of March for Our Lives who won election to Congress in 2022, from pinning the blame for the shooting on Florida’s permitless carry law.
Florida’s permitless carry law doesn’t allow 17-year-olds to carry a gun. With a few exceptions for military and law enforcement, you have to be at least 21 to carry a firearm legally.
In a subsequent post, Maxwell pointed to comments by Orlando’s police chief to back up his claim that the permitless carry law, not the perpetrator, is to blame for the shooting.
CNN reported that the chief told reporters “measures used in previous years to screen people for weapons during the downtown Halloween celebration – including checkpoints and gun-sniffing dogs – were not possible this year because a 2023 state law allows most people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.”
“When the law changed, basically you can carry on a public street as long as you meet certain criteria,” he said.
Right. And the teen didn’t meet that criteria, which Frost conveniently left out of his narrative. Frost also ignored these comments by the chief:
About 100 officers were working a detail in the area, which allowed for a quick response but did not appear to deter the shooter, Smith said.
“Whatever his mindset was, he was going to shoot no matter what,” Smith said. “He walked by multiple officers. He didn’t really care.”
So, it’s not like downtown Orlando was completely devoid of a law enforcement presence. And despite Smith’s claims, if the chief had wanted to set up security checkpoints or have gun-sniffing dogs and their handlers in the crowd, there’s nothing in the permitless carry law that would have stopped him from doing so.
Florida is home to more than 2 million active concealed carry licenses, so even before the permitless carry law took effect in July, 2023 there were plenty of legally-carried guns at huge gatherings with crowds of people like the one in Orlando on Thursday night. How did Smith and the Orlando police deal with lawful gun carriers during the Halloween celebrations in 2022?
Long before Florida’s permitless carry law took effect, the Florida judicial system determined that police officers “may not detain a suspect with a gun simply to determine if the suspect has a valid permit”, so even when Smith and the Orlando police did deploy gun-sniffing dogs or magnetometers throughout downtown Orlando, the mere presence of a firearm wouldn’t have been cause to detain someone carrying a firearm.
Florida’s permitless carry law isn’t to blame for the shootings on Halloween night. Neither is Gov. Ron DeSantis. According to police, it’s a 17-year-old kid who’s already been in trouble with the law who pulled the trigger. And if Frost is inclined to blame Florida’s gun laws for allowing a minor to illegally acquire a gun, he should keep in mind that teens are getting ahold of guns on a regular basis in gun-controlled California too.
