Adam Weinstein
For once, Florida legislators can vote for a gun bill that isn’t totally crazy. But most of them probably won’t.
The state has been an embarrassingly irresponsible free-fire zone for years, having led all comers in licensing unqualified gun-toters, giving them leave to shoot fellow citizens with no accountability, and letting them rain hot lead in their backyards — even if their yard is next to a daycare center.
Mercifully, there’s a chance to fix that latter mistake. Rep. Darryl Rouson, a Democrat of St. Petersburg, has filed a bill for the upcoming spring session that would effectively limit Gunshine Staters’ freedom to set up makeshift shooting ranges in their yards.
At issue is an obscure state law barring counties and cities from punishing anyone for stupidly discharging firearms in residential areas. Most major cities have such discharge laws, a check to make sure that residents who exercise their Second Amendment rights in the ‘burbs also exercise responsibility and awareness at the same time.
In 2011, though, Florida’s Legislature — with a push from NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer — stiffened penalties against officials who try to enforce such local gun ordinances. The result has been a proliferation of bubbas target-shooting in their houses and yards with impunity. Rouson’s bill, HB 623, would give local cops back the freedom to take care of armed boobs whose Second Amendmenting threatens their neighbors.
Weirdly, Hammer agrees with the spirit of Rouson’s bill. “Shooting ranges don’t belong in dense residential neighborhoods,” she has said. But she opposes the bill itself, saying current laws are adequate to stop irresponsible gunmen.
She’s being coy, as usual. The current state law does say it should be a misdemeanor to “recklessly or negligently” go blasting cans and paper targets around other people’s houses. However, it also threatens fines and firings for cops and magistrates who cite gun owners without proving recklessness or negligence. And how do you prove those things? They’re subjective notions — what cops distastefully call “discretionary” laws. Who wants to put their career and livelihood on the line to arrest an idiot for a misdemeanor that may or may not stick?
Just as the infamous Stand Your Ground statute has had a chilling effect on cops and prosecutors, afraid that scrutinizing shooters might earn them a severance and a lawsuit, the state’s subjective constraints on discharge-laws have had a chilling effect on local law enforcement — and led to a flareup of makeshift ranges and scary mishaps, as when nine rounds of AK-47 fire ended up in a Tampa woman’s house after her neighbors decided to take the assault weapon out for a whirl in their yard.
Conservatives should love a bill that lifts a little statewide red-tape and empowers local governments to manage their own security and safety — especially a bill that does nothing to limit citizens’ constitutional rights, but reminds them that those rights come with responsibilities to their fellow citizens. As a gun owner and concealed-carry licensee, I’m all for it.
But that won’t stop Hammer and her rural Republican allies from dishonestly painting the bill as a Second Amendment infringement. Hell, not only will they probably kill Rouson’s bill, but they’ll likely expand Florida’s free-fire zone to include school campuses: A bill for campus carry seems destined for passage this session.
Yep, that’s the Florida Legislature we know so well. Starting Tuesday, we’ll find out for sure how much they love being the NRA-controlled laughingstock of America — and how much future mayhem they’re willing to accept in order to keep that title.
Adam Weinstein is a Tallahassee-based senior writer for Gawker. He has worked for The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, and Mother Jones.
