FL: DeSantis Receives Bill to Restore the Ability to Shoot Bears in Defense

AmmoLand ^ | June 17, 2024 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

On  June 7, 2021, Florida Governor DeSantis received HB0087 along with 24 other bills. Because the bill was sent after the Florida legislature had adjourned for the session, Governor DeSantis has 15 days to sign the bill, allow the bill to become law, or veto the bill.

The Florida legislature overwhelmingly voted for HB0087 on March 8, 2024. The bill is titled Taking of Bears. It restores the ability of people in Florida to protect themselves, their pets, and their dwellings from black bears without having to ask permission from the Florida state bureaucracy first. The legal ability to defend pets and dwellings from bears was stripped away in a regulation created by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission (FWC)in 2012. 68A-4.009 Florida Black Bear Conservation:

1. No person shall take, possess, injure, shoot, collect, or sell black bears or their parts or to attempt to engage in such conduct except as authorized by Commission rule or by permit from the Commission.

The Florida legislature was not involved in this regulation. No elected official voted on this major change in the law. Because law-abiding citizens with property and assets to lose try to follow the law, this regulation cast doubt on people’s ability to defend themselves and others from bears without first obtaining permission from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission.

Even when black bears were invading homes and destroying property, residents were worried that shooting the bear might result in adverse legal consequences.

This is a reversal of traditional law, which was in effect until 2012. If a bear was destroying property or killing livestock, the bear could be stopped with lethal force. The 2012 regulation requires the owner of the livestock or property to contact the Fish & Wildlife Commission first, then attempt to stop the depredations with

[George from New England]

First read looked like the Bee — Bears allowed to shoot back at humans.

[Red Badger]

We have the right to arm bears!...............

[Does so]

“This is why we are up to our ears in Black Bears!....................”

Yet the British ask, “Why do you Americans need guns?”