Just days after the latest gun massacre in Oregon, consider the news out of Florida:
* A powerful father-son legislative duo began a concerted effort to let concealed-weapons permit holders openly carry guns, a measure that passed its first committee stop in the Florida House on Tuesday.
* Also Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of Dale Lee Norman of Fort Pierce, who was found guilty of a second-degree misdemeanor in 2012 for openly carrying a firearm. Norman believes the state’s “open carry” ban violates his Second Amendment rights. That the court will hear his case is good news for him.
* Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers last month reignited the push to let students and staff carry concealed weapons on college campuses. This, and a second gun bill, were the first pieces of legislation to pass out of committee in advance of the 2016 legislative session.
So if you thought Florida would consider saner gun laws because of the latest gun massacre, think again.
Welcome to the Wild West.
And talk about being tone deaf.
Since 1987, Florida has banned people from wearing guns on the outside of their clothes, and now is hardly the time to retreat.
But they don’t call us the Gunshine State for nothing.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, said when introducing HB 163 this week that the measure restores a right “granted not by government, but by God.”
Where in the Ten Commandments does God say you doth have the right to wear a six-shooter?
Adding to the oomph was his father, former Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who introduced the Senate companion, SB 300.
Our nation has more than 300 million guns in circulation — enough for every man, woman and child. And Florida recently celebrated the fact that a million people here now carry concealed weapons.
And heaven forbid if you try to let doctors talk about guns as a health issue. The state forbids doctors from asking about guns in the home, and in 1996, Congress passed a law that prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from getting funding to study gun violence as a health challenge.
It hardly seems like gun rights need to be enhanced.
But the National Rifle Association says so, which means the Florida Legislature says so.
“It’s a recipe for trouble,” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel says about the open-carry proposal. “So many things can go wrong. People can challenge people because they are carrying those things. … It’s like the O.K. Corral.”
Israel is not alone in his opposition.
According to a recent University of South Florida poll, 73 percent of Florida adults say that allowing students to carry concealed weapons on campus would take our state in “the wrong direction.”
Allowing people to flash weapons wherever they go represents a similar wrong direction.
Surprisingly, Florida is among only five states and the District of Columbia that prohibit people from openly carrying firearms.
Matt Gaetz says if his open-carry measure passes, he expects people would undergo training on how to better secure weapons on the outside of their clothes. That’s supposed to be a comforting thought.
These laws are neither wanted nor needed. But despite common sense and public opinion, Florida lawmakers subscribe to one of the NRA’s golden rules: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
The Gunshine State, indeed.
