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Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried hosted a virtual press conference with local elected officials from across the state Wednesday to urge the Florida Supreme Court to take up a challenge to penalties attached to Florida’s gun regulation preemption.

Florida barred local governments from passing gun restrictions stronger than those at the state level in 1987, but in 2011 the Legislature went further and threatened local officials who violate the preemption with $5,000 fines and removal from office.

Local officials sued the state and scored a victory in circuit court, which struck down the penalties, but that decision was reversed on appeal.

Fried, who has joined the lawsuit, said with the country seeing a 34 percent increase in annual gun-deaths over the past 20 years, local governments should have the right to make decisions on how to address gun violence in their communities.

“Let our mayors and our county commissioners and our city commissioners do the job that they were elected to do. And that is to protect and defend the people of their communities. We’ve got to do more and we’re asking the Supreme Court to step up and protect the people of our state,” said Fried.

At this point, the lawsuit does not challenge the underlying 1987 preemption, only the penalties.

In the conference, local officials said those penalties create a chilling effect, making it risky to even test the boundaries of what they can do to quell gun violence.