Renzo Downey
Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson is unveiling his first legislative proposal since taking office, a first-in-the-nation measure to prevent businesses from tracking Floridians’ firearm and ammo purchases.
Simpson, the former Senate President who was sworn in as Agriculture Commissioner last week, announced his proposal for the “Florida Arms and Ammo Act” Tuesday.
The measure comes in response to new international standards for recording payment transactions last year that established a separate identification code for firearm and ammunition sales. With the new merchant category code, it is potentially easier to track people who have purchased guns or ammo.
“We are all blessed to live in the free state of Florida where our Second Amendment rights are valued and protected, but Democrats in Washington continue to try to chip away at these rights — and we must stay vigilant,” Simpson said.
“The ‘Florida Arms and Ammo Act’ draws a line in the sand and tells multi-national progressive financial institutions, and their allies in Washington, that they cannot covertly create a backdoor firearm registry of Floridians — or else.”
As the Commissioner of Agriculture, Simpson heads up the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS). Among other licensing services, FDACS issues firearm licenses.
Simpson, a Republican, announced the measure at Lawmen’s & and Shooters’ Supply location at the Knight’s Armament facility in Titusville. His former colleague, Zephyrhills Republican Sen. Danny Burgess, will file the legislation.
“This is the United States of America. You don’t get penalized for exercising a Constitutional right,” Burgess said. “The Second Amendment is nonnegotiable, and here in Florida, we are going to fight to protect the rights of Floridians.”
Joining Simpson and Burgess in Titusville was Stuart Republican Rep. John Snyder, who will also sponsor the legislation.
“Gun owners will not be targeted by financial institutions in the free state of Florida,” Snyder said. “I am proud to stand with Commissioner Simpson and Senator Burgess to prevent the creation of a comprehensive database of law-abiding Floridians.”
While several states’ Attorneys General have threatened legal action against major credit card companies over their plans to track firearm and ammo sales, Florida would be the first state to pass such a law. Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, another member of the Florida Cabinet alongside Simpson, in September announced plans to void credit card companies that track gun sales.
Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey also joined Simpson and the bill sponsors for the announcement. He said the bill would ensure that Florida remains free.
“We have a responsibility to make sure our citizens are able to exercise their God given rights and can rest easy knowing that our 2nd Amendment is being protected as well as Florida’s Freedom Loving Citizens,” Ivey said.
18 comments
PeterH
January 10, 2023 at 3:44 pm
A bill that will never become law!
Paul Passarelli
January 10, 2023 at 11:08 pm
Why not PeterH? Does Constitutional Freedom make you scared? Are you afraid that if individual rights are protected you will make pee-pee in your pants, and people will laugh at you?
I’ve got news; people are already laughing at you.
SteveHC
January 10, 2023 at 11:49 pm
“Paul” – “Constitutional Freedom”??? You agree that the US Constitution was created by flesh-and-blood men, right? AND YET you believe that our rights are “god-given” or somehow “granted” to us by “nature,” right? You can’t really insist on having it both ways and still expect others to consider you to be a person exhibiting rational thought.
Paul Passarelli
January 11, 2023 at 8:37 am
No. The Constitution & the Bill of Rights, establishes a clear list of restrictions on what *governments* are legally prohibited from doing to individuals.
There are some assumptions that men of good character already presume to be so heinous that they are inherently deplored by all. (q.v. The Ten Commandments) But here is the think, if those are regularly violated by all then there is really no civilization to speak of.
Again’ rights are not granted. That’s a Leftist indoctrination of thought. It’s a Deep State talking point. Rights are what people exercise in their day-to-day lives. What the Constitution did was to commit the essence of what the ‘natural rights’ are to paper, for everyone to read.
You *should* be grateful. If it weren’t for the prohibitions on group think, the intelligent people would have organized long ago and culled all the morons that spew foolish thoughts. And where would you be then?
Does that help you to understand that no group has more *rights* than any individual that makes up that group? What groups do have is _power_ and that is why groups need restrictions on what they can do as a group. Individuals generally do not need restrictions on their behaviour other than that their actions should not actually harm others.
And being afraid of scary black guns is hot legally a harm (q.v. tort).
SteveHC
January 10, 2023 at 4:04 pm
“ ‘We have a responsibility to make sure our citizens are able to exercise their God given rights and can rest easy knowing that our 2nd Amendment is being protected as well as Florida’s Freedom Loving Citizens,’ Ivey said.” – Ahh… and the seemingly never-ending parade of nitwits streaming from the DeSantis administration continues onward… there ARE NO “God-given ‘rights’ “ to American citizens, dunderheads! If it isn’t specified in the HUMAN-created laws and/or Constitution of the United States of America then YOU DO NOT HAVE IT. And if it IS therein, its existence there is due to your fellow American citizens’ permitting it to be so – through either human action or inaction. If anybody wants a government “provided” to them by a god then might I recommend one’s relocation to, say, IRAN? Or perhaps Afganistan?
Paul Passarelli
January 10, 2023 at 11:15 pm
Ahhh, so you don’t like the idea of “god-given rights” — OK, then do what I do, call them *NATURAL RIGHTS*. Because they are one-and-the-same.
I don’t need the government to grant me any rights that I claim.Because they arose naturally as I grew into sentience as a child.
OK, I understand that too many kids today are being indoctrinated by the Left in such a way that they never mature into real adults. They are raised to believe the lie that their rights must be given to them by the group. That’s simply not true. The rights exist from the first day.
The only think people of good conscience ‘require’ is that the government does not trample on the rights of the individual. That’s because government has the *power* to trample the individual, but just because it has the ability based on the might, the fact that it is a group does not convey the authority.
THERE ARE NO COLLECTIVE RIGHTS!!!
SteveHC
January 10, 2023 at 11:38 pm
“Paul” – Tell it to the criminal who thinks he “has the right” to come up from behind you in the dead of night, pull out a handgun and shoot a bullet through your skull so he can take your wallet as per his own so-called “god-given oh, excuse me – ‘natural-from birth’ – rights”. You are writing opinion out of irrational thinking, dude. But then again I suppose you are thinking from within a realm of your own (man-made) creation.
Paul Passarelli
January 11, 2023 at 8:20 am
Um, “SteveHC”, I’m one of the few here that actually posts with my real name.
You are being hyperbolic. The criminal doesn’t have a right to commit a crime. The act of shooting someone in the back of the head, is already *prohibited*. It’s a rather strong prohibition at that. But let’s suppose for a moment he does. The right to self defense is the victim’s counter balancing right.
So, tell me, if the criminal is willing to violate a prohibition that is already likely to earn him a hot-needle, or a date with Mr. Sparky, etc., do you think the added penalty of registering his ammunition, or stealing it, any more of a deterrent? Never mind the question was rhetorical, the thinking of people that believe that nonsense is already delusional.
What I can tell is that you do not understand the basic concept of what a “right” actually is.
First & foremost a right does not create an obligation, burden or duty on any others when it is exercised. My right to worship, to keep and bear arms, not quarter soldiers, expectation to be secure in my home, not to be forced to testify against myself, public trial, trial by jury, excess bail, and the allocation of the remaining rights, etc., are all restrictions on ***GROUPS*** i.e. governments, for the protections of individuals that exercise their natural freedoms, or sometimes abuse them.
Going back to the shooter & the victims. If you see a shooter walking up the street, blasting away, and he looks at you are you simply going to stand there and wait to be next? Or are you going to lick up the scary gun and defend yourself? What if its not a gun. just a club with or without a spike? Are you going to allow yourself to be bludgeoned?
If you’re like PeterH and are afraid of your own shadow, then move to California or Oregon, or maybe Chicago, Detroit, or Baltimore, where they have strong anti-gun laws and lots of shootings, or someplace else where the government will ‘protect’ your fragile insensibilities.
Just understand that here in the Free State of Florida you are becoming more and more of a laughing stock.
SteveHC
January 11, 2023 at 5:25 pm
Meh… your insults to myself and others here impress NO one, just makes you appear to be a very little man.
Paul Passarelli
January 11, 2023 at 6:00 pm
It was not my intent to try to impress anyone. It was my goal to point out how unimpressive your arguments and ability to reason are. There is a difference.
Boaz
January 11, 2023 at 10:48 pm
Simply read our country’s founding documents — first, the Declaration of Independence, second, the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights), and then the Federalist Papers, coauthored by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (regarded by historians as the father of the Constitution) to promote and facilitate the ratification of the Constitution (Before ratification, these United States had been operating pursuant to the Articles of Confederation). Then, maybe, perhaps, you may have a rudimentary understanding of natural rights, the distinct differences between authority, rights, and privileges, etc. I would also recommend the writings of John Locke, Bernard Mandeville, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, et al. Where you won’t find such answers is in Das Kapital, one of the authoritarian left’s favorite reads.
cassandra
January 13, 2023 at 7:02 pm
REPLY IS BELOW
cassandra
January 13, 2023 at 4:58 pm
You mention Rousseau, Boaz…While I was looking for answers to the question of whether women have ‘natural rights’ or merely ‘privileges’ given or taken by men at their whim and by their law, I was reminded of Rousseau‘s irrational fear of women, and was able to locate among his writings the following explanation of why women must be kept in the home, barefoot and pregnant without rights recognized by men:
“…men would be tyrannized by women … For, given the ease with which women arouse men’s senses—men would finally be their victims….”
Men controlling women’s behavior rather than their own doesn’t seem to have changed much. Women have guns, too, and while I am *NOT* advocating for it, I AM wondering what it would take to get women to pick them up.
Paul Passarelli
January 14, 2023 at 9:05 am
“Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” That said; my business partner (deceased) used to say “Women are 1000x better than men; in almost every way.” I’ve also heard is said that “only weak men need to control their women”.
And of course there are the jokes:
“I know I’m a man. I’ve always known I’m a man. I did spend a short portion of my life thinking I’m a man trapped inside a woman’s body, then I was born.” — Chuck Norris
cassandra
January 15, 2023 at 10:34 am
hi Paul, reply is below
cassandra
January 15, 2023 at 10:19 am
Somehow I missed reading the book. I just checked Wikipedia; it says, unlike women, men need to run off for a “time-out” when situations get stressful. Now what would I know about that? LOL! But while it’s cold outside I’ll try to be nice in case your garage is unheated.
I suspect you’re probably leaving out the part where when your partner said “1000x better”, it was frequently followed by something like: “but I wish they could quit taaalking once in a while.” Maybe something about them staying out of the garage, too!
Paul Passarelli
January 16, 2023 at 1:23 pm
Larry was a *serious* car guy. He made classic Cunninghams.
Tracey wasn’t into cars, but she used to cast her own bullets.
He died when his physician misprescribed his heart medication.
cassandra
January 17, 2023 at 5:57 pm
I’m sorry about your partner. It had to have been really hard for his family and friends to lose him that way.
Since you mentioned the bullet-making, I looked around online for a while and was surprised by how popular it is. DIY is (usually, anyway) good. Finding car-making information was not so easy, but I was able to read a little about the Cunningham company itself, which until now I hadn’t heard of. Between the two hobbies, your partner’s garage must have been quite interesting!
I’m guessing Larry lived in CT, too. It seems like a nice state, and beautiful in the fall and winter, though I’ve only driven through it on the way north. I grew up in northeastern MD and DE—for a while near Biden in Greenville. Delaware is so small that we were always leaving the state.
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