DeSantis says Florida ‘will not comply’ with Biden’s ‘public health’ emergency on guns

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed the Sunshine State won’t abide by potential bureaucratic restrictions on Second Amendment rights after the U.S. surgeon general declared firearm violence a “public health crisis.”

The Biden administration’s surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said guns “[pose] a serious threat to the health and well-being of our country.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ webpage for the advisory does not list any new legal action taken on restrictions, but DeSantis warned that similar advisories were issued at the start of the coronavirus pandemic – preceding lockdowns and other government mandates.

“During COVID, unelected bureaucrats used ‘public health’ as a pretext to deprive citizens of their rights– and I signed legislation to protect Floridians from government overreach,” DeSantis said. “Now, Biden’s Surgeon General is attempting to violate the Second Amendment through the ‘public health’ bureaucracy.”

“We will not comply,” he said. “Florida will always reject the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional power-grabs.”

In 2022, when the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention worked to add COVID-19 vaccines to the childhood vaccination schedule, DeSantis vowed against any vaccine mandates for children.

He has also vowed against mask mandates or other “public health” lockdowns since the pandemic.

The governor signed “medical freedom” legislation in 2023, which bars state entities, schools and businesses from imposing mandates on masks, tests or vaccines. It also declared that groups like the World Health Organization cannot “dictat[e] policy in Florida.”

“Our early actions during the pandemic protected Floridians and their freedoms,” DeSantis said last year. “We protected the rights of Floridians to make decisions for themselves and their children and rejected COVID theater, narratives, and hysteria in favor of truth and data. These expanded protections will help ensure that medical authoritarianism does not take root in Florida.”

On firearms, DeSantis signed permitless carry legislation into law last year, further cementing a majority of U.S. states allowing concealed carry of a firearm without a government “permission slip.”