Ron DeSantis Signs Bill Banning Local Governments From Implementing Their Own Gun Control Laws

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill into law that bans local governments from implementing their own gun control laws.

DeSantis signed the bill on Friday, but news of its signing broke on Monday. The bill expands on an existing law in the state that restricts local governments from enacting their own gun control regulations.

“The bill, which will take effect July 1, will broaden a 2011 law that can make local governments pay as much as $100,000 in damages if they are sued for imposing gun regulations,” Sun Sentinel reported. “DeSantis signed the bill about a month after a panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld the 2011 law that threatens penalties if cities and counties approve gun regulations.”

An individual or an organization may sue “any county, agency, municipality, district, or other entity in any court” if they have been “adversely affected by any ordinance, regulation, measure, directive, rule, enactment, order, or policy, whether written or unwritten,” the law states. Plantiffs can collect incurred damages of up to $100,000 and interest on the sums awarded “shall accrue at the legal rate from the date on which suit was filed.”

Florida has banned cities and counties from imposing their own gun control laws that are stricter than the state’s laws since 1987.

Rep. Cord Byrd, a Neptune Beach Republican who was the House sponsor of the bill, said that the bill was created to “send a message” to local governments. “I brought this forward so that local governments will once and for all stop violating the rights and stop wasting taxpayer money,” said Byrd, a pro-Second Amendment attorney.

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