Guest AuthorThe start of the new legislative session could rightly be called the silly season. The men and women elected to represent us have endeavored to propose some of the most nonsensical legislation.
It makes you question the quality of our leadership.
So many of the bills, such as the “Warning Shot” bill, can be considered faux solutions looking for a problem. Others, it seems, are inspired by our politicians’ pathological and craven need to genuflect before the National Rifle Association and Marion Hammer, its top lobbyist.
Hammer backs a “Right to Be a Kid” bill, which would bar school districts from suspending students who point a finger and go “bang, bang, bang.” Hammer is calling that bill one of the most important pieces of legislation coming out of this year’s session. Talk about keeping expectations low.
Hammer slams school administrators who forget what it was like to be a kid. And so does Rep. Dennis Baxley, author of the “Pop Tart” bill. The Ocala Republican apparently heard about some 7-year-old kid in Maryland who got it trouble for using his teeth to shape his jelly-filled breakfast ration into a toy gun — I assume it was a pistol — and was suspended as a result. Faster than it takes for a tart to pop, Baxley wants to put a stop to that.
School districts often lack common sense in meting out punishment, but these two bills are unnecessary. They do nothing but reinforce the notion that our legislators are servants of and subservient to the gun interests first and foremost.
Those who argue for these bills rarely acknowledge the valid reason for zero tolerance: there have been 387 school shootings in America since 1992, according to one study. There have been 44 school shootings resulting in 28 deaths since 26 children and adults were gunned down in the Newtown massacre in December 2012. In the first six weeks of 2014, there have been 13 school shootings.
Most students who point a finger and go “bang, bang” won’t become mass murderers. But history proves that we ignore juvenile threats at our own peril.
The silly legislation isn’t restricted to guns. One legislator wants to ban flags not made in America or not using American materials from being flown at state and local government buildings.
But all isn’t lost. Speaker Will Weatherford wants to make it less costly for the children of illegal immigrants to attend state colleges and universities by making them eligible for in-state tuition. Another piece of legislation, which they should call the “Comeuppance” bill, seeks to drug-test elected officials.
This legislation is overdue. Given Gov. Rick Scott’s failed attempts to drug-test welfare recipients and some of the off-the-wall policy positions legislators take, we will no longer have to ask what are they smoking.
Andrew J. Skerritt is author of “Ashamed to Die: Silence, Denial and the AIDS Epidemic in the South.” He lives and works in Tallahassee. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
