Florida Law Nibbles Around the Edges
Yesterday, under extreme pressure from the public led by students from Marjory Stoneman High School, Florida governor Rick Scott signed a hastily drafted gun safety law that nibbled around the edges of our gigantic problem of gun violence. Not completely lame, the new law does raise the minimum age for any gun purchase to 21, imposes a 3 day waiting period for gun purchases by unlicensed individuals, increases the budget for police in schools, raises the budget for mental health treatment for students, and bans bump stocks which should have never been legal to begin with.
What does the bill get wrong? The bill stupidly legalizes arming school employees which actually INCREASES the risk of gun violence in the schools. It doesn’t ban assault weapons. It doesn’t even pause the sales of assault weapons while the state studies gun violence. It doesn’t limit magazine size or limit ammunition sales. It doesn’t strengthen the background check system. In fact, a provision that closed the “lie and try” loophole was left out. The “lie and try” provision would provide a mechanism to the state to charge people who lie on their background check form with a crime. Right now, there is a federal criminal penalty for lying on the form, but in 37 states, including Florida, there is no mechanism for the FBI to notify the state that an applicant lied on the form. Stupid, right? Easy to fix, right? Well, they didn’t.
Sixty seven “A” rated Republicans voted for this bill, and, of course, the NRA immediately responded by suing the state in an effort to stop it, and its lobbyists have certainly already started threatening those politicians for daring to not do its bidding.
Nibbling around the edges of gun violence will do little to curb it, and will just add fuel to the gun nut argument that “laws don’t work”. They’ll be correct, of course, since the poorly crafted gun safety bill will do little to actually increase gun safety.
The NRA only allowed this because it includes a new source of revenue for gun makers. Nobody sane would expect Scott to do anything the didn’t approve.
1Then the NRA immediately files a law suit trying to stop this. Now that is the problem with them! The small gesture to try to find an answer is seen as a ” Trying to take away my gun rights chant” Please I told you I hear second amendment one more time I may have to “git myself a gun” …
2I am praying that the good folks in Texas vote against Ted Cruz, this man seems to be the devil.
3Whatcha mean? A waiting period! I’m Mad, NOW.
4It’s minimal but the political reality is you “get what you can”.
5As minimal as this bill is, it is amazing that it was passed in Florida, Land of Fox News. We’ll see if the court down there can stand up to the NRAxis of Evil.
6Sure, it’s not much, but ANY crack in the NRA facade of invincibility is a good thing.
7Arming teachers is such a bad, and ineffective, idea it is hard to accept people smart enough to talk would even propose it.
8History is against it. seriously History writen by historians.
Read S.L.A. Marshalls history of soldiers who in the heat of battle, do not fire their weapons at all. Some just never fire, others forget to switch the safety off, others never reload just keep pulling trigger.
From civil war histories where after a battle numorous rifles that had been loaded and reloaded without ever being discharged ( forgot percussion caps) would be found on the field.
The military works hard to train people to fire.
Would a teacher with out “Combat” training engage? And if they do engage would they be effective?
Remember the Boston bombing aftermath where they had the suspect trapped in a fibreglass boat on a trailer, fibreglass is not known as being bulletproof, and all the police of multiple jurisdictions opened up on the boat with everything they had ( pistols, M-16’s, shotguns, etc) in what sounded like a war zone and yet the suspect walked away fom the boat only suffering from a previously inflicted wound. Or in NYC a few years back where 9 bystanders were wounded by police bullets when they confronted a single suspect.
So between reluctance to engage and a dubious ability to engage without killing bystanders how can any sentient being believe arming untrained ( or cursory training) would help anything?
I think I’ve found another big flaw in the “arm the teachers” idea. If I was armed and my classroom was in lockdown with an active shooter, there’s no way I’d leave my kids to hunt down the shooter. I’d be sitting behind the hardest thing I could find, aiming at the door and ready to empty the magazine into the first person to come through it.
9The chief of police of the community I live in emptied his 9mm pistol at a vehicle fleeing a nighttime burglary of a closed sporting goods store. The vehicle later recovered had not a single bullet penetration. The shot distances were 10 to 30 feet. He was subsequently disciplined because none of the shots was justified.
10When will people who take $$ from the NRA realize that they have sold themselves into slavery? The only ones who can free them are themselves! Who in the world adores slavery for themselves so much that they will not do this?
11Congratulations and thank you to the students of Marjory Stoneman High School for taking it to the legislature and Rick Scott! May the losses in Tallahassee be the first of many more losses for the NRA.
‘March for Our Lives’ in two weeks, March 24th. If you can’t rally in Dee Cee, please find a rally near you to support these young adults.
https://www.romper.com/p/how-to-find-a-march-for-our-lives-near-you-because-demonstrations-are-happening-across-the-us-8359401
12Since bump stocks are not guns, it strikes me they are not a second amendment issue. And regulation of sales by an assessed maturation level has long been an acceptable regulation under the law.
Therefore the NRA has surrendered nothing under the new Florida law.
Predictably, it has gained the long-sought goal of adding additional guns to campuses under the good-guy-with-a-gun theory of law enforcement.
Yesterday Betsy DeVoss argued gun control in our schools is a matter of local and state preference.
Awwh, pshaw, I argue. Since the second amendment is the only thing the right wing recognizes in the Constitution, gun control is a matter of national concern and should be handled in a single deliberation by the Congress and Courts of these United States.
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell should lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.
Please praise the child activists as they are good.
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