Scott Powers
The Orange County on Tuesday approved an ordinance requiring three-day waiting periods for background checks of all firearms purchases, specifically targeting gunshots and flea markets.
The ordinance also aimed at lawmakers and other state officials who in 2011 passed a state law making local gun laws illegal, and Orange County officials are going forward with the belief that this one cannot be challenged by state officials.
The new ordinance is based on a 1998 amendment to the state constitution allowing counties to adopt gun background check waiting periods, and the commission adopted it somewhat in defiance of state officials who, under the 2011 law pre-empting local gun laws, have the power to fine, jail, remove from office and hold liable any local officials seeking to pass gun laws.
You can’t do that to us over this because we’re basing this on a state constitution provision, was the essential message Mayor Teresa Jacobs and the Orange County Board of Commissioners, by a 7-0 vote, declared yesterday.
The ordinance specifically addresses gun shows, flea markets and gun exhibits, indicating they took must comply with the background check and waiting period rules.
“They can’t pre-empt the constitution,” Jacobs said.
Some cities are suing the state over the 2011 law, but Orange County is not, at least not at this time.
“The first option was, should we sue? My second thought was, we are a county, and counties, unlike cities, have a constitutional provision that allows us to put this back in. Rather than suing, why don’t we just do it? We could sue, or we could do. I decided to bring to the board the option to do the maximum that we could do under this pre-emption law,” Jacobs said.
The approval Tuesday drew very little opposition. One speaker urged the board to consider setting up better, fairer systems for background checks before requiring them. Commissioner Betsy VanderLey picked up on that concern. She offered her yes vote if Jacobs would promise to revisit the background check system before she leaves office at the end of the year. Jacobs agreed, asking County Attorney Jeff Newton to offer a report in three months.
Commissioner Pete Clarke, who is running for mayor, described himself as a staunch defender of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a gun owner, but declared his support for this ordinance.
“I think this shows proper governance. If they want to throw me in jail and fine me $5,000, so be it,” Clarke said.
Several prominent Democrats, notably state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, Orange County Democratic Chairman Wes Hodge, and state house candidate Anna Eskamani, spoke in favor of the ordinance, though Smith and Hodge offered some criticism of Jacobs and the board for waiting until now, after the Feb. 14 mass murder in Parkland, rather than considering it earlier, in the aftermath of Orlando’s mass murder at Pulse two years ago.
In fact, the county had a background check ordinance on the books since 1988, and it was tied to the state constitution in 1998 after Florida voters overwhelmingly approved what became Article VIII, Section 5, allowing counties to have waiting periods on gun purchases. Yet in 2011, after the Florida Legislature approved the local gun ordinance preemption law, Jacobs led the Orange County Board of Commissioners in an effort to repeal the background check ordinance, among several other gun ordinances on the county books.
