So Florida changed that. They created some disincentives for such lawmakers. It's something every preemption state needs to do.

Unfortunately, now some legislators are trying to weaken it.

Florida’s strong firearm pre-emption law could be significantly undermined if House Bill 651 is passed into law. 

On March 18, 2025, the Housing, Agriculture & Tourism Subcommittee held a hearing on this legislation. In an email to its supporters, pro-gun advocacy organization Florida Carry has argued that HB 651 “attempts to weaken firearm law preemption, specifically targeting Sec. 790.33, which was designed to hold state agencies accountable for enforcing firearm laws.” HB 651 has a companion bill in the Florida State Senate, Senate Bill 700. 

In essence, the bill amends the process for assessing civil fines and attorney fees connected to local ordinances or regulations that undermine the state’s exclusive power to regulate firearms and ammunition. Specifically, civil fines and attorney fees can only be assessed under the following circumstances: 

• If the entity received notice of the local ordinance or regulation at least 30 days before a lawsuit was filed.
• If the entity failed to change the ordinance, regulation, measure, directive, rule, enactment, order, or policy within that 30-day period.

Additionally, this provision aims to give local entities a grace period to correct any potentially preempted firearms regulations before penalties are imposed on them. Overall, these modifications to the firearms preemption law appear to weaken the immediate punitive aspects of the state’s preemption law while still maintaining the state’s overall authority over firearms regulation.

Now, I can hear some people right now. "That's not so bad. It's still preemption, and there are still penalties. It just gives them a chance to fix it first."

Sure, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's still a step in the wrong direction.

A grace period only makes sense if there is some chance that communities are unaware of the preemption law in the first place. I'm not a huge fan of the whole idea that ignorance of a law is no excuse sort of thing as a general rule, so a grace period makes sense when people might be unaware they ran afoul of some rule or regulation.

But communities know what they're doing when they pass these laws. If nothing else, they're informed during the discussion about such ordinances. Someone invariably tells them that lawfully, they can't pass it. Many ignore this and pass the laws anyway. That means this is a willful action and a grace period isn't warranted.

Further, let's understand something. This "it's not so bad" legislation is just going to be the first step. Each incremental step backward will be used to justify and encourage the next one.

It's how we lost our cake.

Now that Florida has something that puts some teeth into preemption, the powers that be want to remove those teeth so they can do whatever they want without any real repercussions for them.

The fact that this made it out of a subcommittee is baffling. Still, the entire legislature will have to vote on it, and Gov. Ron DeSantis would have to sign it. That last part, especially, isn't likely to happen. I doubt it'll make it to his desk in the first place.

However, this is what it is. It's an attempt to roll back some of the Second Amendment protections on the book in Florida. Do not let yourselves be fooled.