Rep. Byron Donalds is the current front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor in Florida next year, with a statewide poll earlier this month showing him with a commanding 19-point lead over Casey DeSantis (at least once voters were told that President Donald Trump has already endorsed Donalds). 

Now the man who may be running the state starting in 2027 says repealing some of the state's gun control laws would be a top priority for his administration. 

Byron Donalds says “job one” for him if elected governor of Florida next year would be the repeal two provisions of the gun-safety package passed by the Florida Legislature following  the shooting massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

However, so does Ron DeSantis, and the two measures in question — the state’s “red-flag” law and the ban on individuals under the age of 21 from purchasing a long gun — very much remain the law of the land in Florida.

Donalds appeared Thursday on the Bob Rose Show in Gainesville, where he was asked if he would push for Florida to legalize the open carrying of firearms, another idea the governor has said he supports but which the Legislature has not enacted.

“I would support and push for that, but I think that the bigger thing that we need to get done is really unwinding the red flag laws in our state,” Donalds said.

“When I was in the Legislature, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas bill came through the Legislature. I was a freshman at that time and I opposed that legislation. And I opposed it because I thought that red flag laws really did take away your Fifth Amendment rights as a citizen, and I also felt that there should not be a two-tier system for adults between the ages of 18 and 21.

“I felt that was wrong then, and I still feel that way, so I would tell you that making sure that those two provisions — those constitutional rights are actually restored will probably be job one.”

As the Florida Phoenix points out, Donalds' position puts him in line with what current Gov. Ron DeSantis has said. The problem with repealing the ban on gun sales to adults younger than 21 and the state's "red flag" law doesn't lie with the executive branch. The blame rests squarely on the Florida Senate. 

Senate President Ben Albritton was non-committal about bringing a bill to the Senate floor that would have ended the ban on gun sales to under-21s, even though it passed with wide margins in the House. And former Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, who kept the repeal measures bottled up in committee last session, was instrumental in blocking the repeal bill this year thanks to her position as chair of the Senate Rules Committee.

Senate Rules Chairwoman Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said Monday her committee won't take up a House measure (HB 759) that would lower the minimum age to 18.

Passidomo said the decision against taking up the House bill was made before the shooting Thursday at Florida State University that killed two people and injured six others. The alleged gunman, the stepson of a Leon County Sheriff's deputy, was also shot as police officers quickly responded to the scene. 

After a 2018 mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people, the legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott approved a number of changes, including increasing the minimum age for long-gun purchases to 21. Federal law has long set the minimum age at 21 for handgun purchases.

"I haven't changed my position in how many years," Passidomo, a former Senate president, said. "I've been clear from day one that I'm not going to replace Parkland. I was there."

I'm thrilled that Donalds is willing to make the repeal of these infringements a "day one" agenda item. And thanks to Florida's legislative term limits there's a very good chance he'll be more successful at shepherding the bills through the Senate than DeSantis has been. 

Passidomo is term-limited, so Donalds won't have to worry about her refusing to bring repeal bills up for votes in committee. State Rep. Lauren Melo is the early favorite to replace Passidomo, who's term-limited in 2026. Melo voted to approve HB 759 back in March, so if Melo is elected in the ruby-red district there'll be one more supporter of the repeal efforts in the upper chamber. 

As a freshman senator, though, Melo won't be chairing the Rules Committee. And if Albritton remains Senate president, he could still wield his power to keep the "red flag" and ban on gun sales to under-21s in place. There's a decent chance that by the time the 2026 elections roll around the Supreme Court will have taken up and decided the NRA's lawsuit against the sales ban, so that measure might be moot by the time the class of 2026 is sworn in to office, but if Donalds wants to repeal the state's "red flag" law as well he's likely going to find a way to deal with a recalcitrant Senate President who wants to keep the ERPO law in place.