Jacob Ogles
Letter placards spelling the words “Background Checks” raised upward this week outside the Florida Capitol as gun reform activists gathered.
State Rep. Margaret Good said seeing some 500 advocates visit Tallahassee just offers visual confirmation to what polls already show. Floridians want to close loopholes and stop firearms from landing in the wrong hands.
“It’s part of a great divide between what Floridians want and what the Legislature is doing,” she said. “I am doing everything I can to bridge that.”
The first legislation Good filed this year was a requirement for background checks. The Sarasota Democrat welcomed the Moms Demand Action group into town on Wednesday.
So did state Sen. Lauren Book, a Plantation Democrat who also filed multiple bills regarding firearm access.
“I look forward to continued conversations about the best ways to keep our kids safe from gun violence in school,” Book wrote on social media.
Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, said roughly twice as many members of the organization showed up in Tallahassee for the advocacy day today than came to Florida’s capitol for the event in 2018.
Similar events happened at statehouses around the country today.
But another Tallahassee fixture has shown less enthusiasm.
Marion Hammer, executive director for the United Sportsmen of Florida and a powerful lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, issued an unfavorable analysis of Good’s bill on Saturday.
She said universal background checks will just lead to an abundance of dealer fees for any transfer, even just loaning a hunting rifle to a friend.
“The bill sponsor must assume that dealers will be eager to accommodate this gun control measure because they have an opportunity to make as much money as they choose while implementing the liberal left’s gun control schemes,” Hammer wrote.
She also saw background checks as a potential pathway to gun confiscation.
Good said she met with Hammer as well, but didn’t describe the meeting as productive.
“She provided a good deal of criticism without any god ideas of how to move the issue forward,” Good said.
But Good said her bill aims simply to require checks for every gun purchase. “We are working hard to make sure firearms don’t end up in the hands of those who should not have access, like convicted felons,” Good said.
But what does any of the activism mean in Florida, a land often called the “Gunshine State” by activists on both sides of the issue?
Good said she knows Republican leadership in the House now has an awareness of her bill. She wouldn’t speculate on whether matter might get a committee vote.
She pointed to a Quinnipiac poll taken after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last year that showed 96 percent of Floridians support background checks.
“It’s an issue that’s important the vast majority of Floridians,” Good said. “I am hopeful my Republican colleagues will recognize the is not a partisan issue.”
2 comments
Edward Freeman
February 7, 2019 at 5:56 am
Why on Earth is Marion Hammer “powerful”? She has done remarkable harm to Floridians over the years, yet legislators and state employees keep listening to a woman who’s time is long past. The likely reason is that Ms. Hammer is a bully, as she has shown repeatedly. Legislators need to grow a spin and at a minimum pass Rep. Good’s bill.
Gene Ralno
February 7, 2019 at 12:37 pm
Socialists want us to believe they dream of peace in our time and wish for total elimination of firearms from the planet. But they know it’s an impossible dream and just pretend to believe. I used to wonder why socialists saturate media outlets with soothing pleas for conversation instead of acting on their clear and ultimate goal of confiscation. I assumed they stopped short of the extreme because they know firearms owners won’t tolerate confiscation without unimaginable fury. Fact is socialists no longer will settle for controlling little things like bayonet lugs, ammunition taxes, bullet shapes and so on. That was just part of a common socialist flimflam.
They abandoned compromise because they know the people have caught on to their little ruse. But they still must first have universal background checks that are impossible to ensure without universal registration. What they need first are background checks on transfers between mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors.
They’re after inheritances, bequeathals, gifts and sales of inherited collections, however small they are. A transfer includes sale, giving, lending, returning, renting, or simply handing a firearm to another person or any action that causes a firearm to be transferred from one law-abiding person to another law-abiding person. Those are the voters they hope to transform into dependents on the government.
Socialists don’t give a hoot about criminals who don’t acquire firearms legally and don’t vote. They need universal registration because it fundamentally transforms 120 million owners into dependents. Once they know who the owners are, they’ll choose which of them are allowed to be licensed. It’s the consummate entitlement. The democrat party cannot survive without more than half the nation being dependent on the government. Socialists trade entitlements for votes. It’s the heart of their strategy.
Citizens just becoming aware should open their minds to the fact that the U.S. is very lucky to have a hundred million legally armed citizens with 400 million firearms in private hands. They should recognize that these are the most peaceable, lawful people in our nation. Socialists need to look at our open borders, colossal drug trade, scarce law enforcement, timid prosecution, limited incarcerations, gang strength, mental defectives living at home and terrorists roaming the streets. Can anyone even imagine the unbridled carnage if the socialist goal of total confiscation were to be achieved?
Clearly democrats fear their neighbors and even other citizens who are armed. So every time you vote, think about this. Those who carry out mass murders fear armed citizens and it’s precisely why governments always disarm the governed before they purge the disobedient. Taken together, all the mass shooting deaths from nuts, felons, terrorists and illegal aliens, throughout history for the entire planet, is infinitesimal compared to the total number of civilian citizens murdered by governments. It’s the reason for our 2nd Amendment and throughout human history, it has been a very bad idea to allow any government to disarm its people. And think about the consequences of not voting.
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