Randy Fine’s bill to allow guns on college campuses shot down in first Senate stop

Legislation to allow guns on college campuses died in its first committee hearing after too few GOP lawmakers were in the room to keep it alive.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 4-3 against the legislation (SB 814), which would have enabled lawful gun owners to carry their weapons onto any college or university campus, including dormitories and resident halls.

Brevard County Republican Sen. Randy Fine said the change is needed after Jewish college students faced threats of “on-campus Muslim terror” following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“A child going to a university — an 18-, a 19-, a 20-year-old — deserves to be able to walk through campus, deserves to be able to fight their way out of a building if people hold them there, deserves when a mob surrounds them and attacks them — it’s happened at my alma mater — that they can do something about it,” he said.

“You have the right to defend yourself, and that right doesn’t go away because you walked onto a college campus.”

Too many of Fine’s Senate colleagues thought the bill was too drastic a change. Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia joined Democratic Sens. Mack Bernard, Jason Pizzo and Carlos Guillermo Smith in voting “no.”

Republican Sens. Joe Gruters, Clay Yarborough and Jonathan Martin voted “yes.”

Republican Sens. Jennifer Bradley and Corey Simon were absent from the vote.

Tuesday’s vote marks the end for SB 814, which lost its House counterpart (HB 31) early this year when Republican sponsor Joel Rudman, a former Navarre Representative who resigned for an unsuccessful run at Congress, withdrew the proposal.

This is likely the last time Fine will run the bill in Tallahassee. He tendered his resignation, effective March 31, in November within hours of announcing his bid for Florida’s 6th Congressional District.

In January, Fine — who carries an endorsement from Donald Trump — trounced two underfunded Primary foes to clinch the GOP nomination.

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This report is developing and will be updated.

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