Concealment

In Florida there is no gun registration.  In Florida you can obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon pretty routinely.  State sales tax is 6%, and there is no income tax.  The cost of living is less than California where the state sales tax is around 8%, or higher depending on which county you live in. There is close to a 10% income tax depending on your income bracket.  It is almost impossible to get a concealed gun permit, and there is gun registration.

If you don't own guns, or have an interest in them you would never know that there is a serious ammunition shortage in this country right now.  Those who do own firearms are purchasing ammunition faster than the manufacturers can put it out.  Guns and ammo are flying off the shelves at a record pace.  I suppose this is a reaction in some part, if not completely, to the current debate about the 2nd amendment, and how far governments can, and will go toward restricting the ownership of firearms.

We visited the local gun store again around 10 am.  Apparently in Florida concealed gun permits are handled by the State Department of Agriculture, Licensing Division.  I know, I had the same question......why the Department of Agriculture?  No doubt there is some govermental logic to that, but it escapes me.  We were surprised to learn how many people in Florida are applying for concealed gun permits.....you have to make an appointment about 2 months in advance just to apply.  Even this gun shop was low on ammunition.

Our friends, Ernie and Carol, suggested we drive down to West Palm beach for lunch to do a little site seeing, and have lunch so we left around 11 am and headed south on I-95. We stopped at the local Tiki Bar for a quick lunch.  Yelp gives it a 3, but I would give it a 2.5.....meager bottled beer selection, no draft beer, and average food, but the company and view more than made up for that.

Tiki Bar

We drove around town for a while after lunch and then headed back north to Stuart.

We have been giving a lot of thought to changing our state residency, and are currently looking at several states as possibilities.  Florida has risen up pretty high on the list in the past 2 months we have been here.  Ideally the state we choose will not have state income tax, but that does not rule out states that have state income tax, but no sales tax, such as Oregon.  We talked extensively with Chris and Cherie (Technomadia) about our situation when we were in Cedar Key and decided at the time to not make a decision yet.

Well, Wednesday is moving day....we'll be moving up the coast to Melbourne where we will hook up with Chris and Cherie for a day, then up to St. Augustine for a few days.

We had a nice farewell dinner with Carol, then she left to drive back up to Vero Beach for work.  We finished off the evening watching the 2nd part of the latest Castle episode with Ernie....a lot of new plot twists were introduced in this episode.

Thanks for stopping by!