The Republican legislators hell-bent on making Florida a permitless, concealed carry state must not get around much — or they would’ve routinely encountered way too many of our infamous hotheads.
Road rage. Domestic homicide. Children and adults in gangs killing each other. A history of record-setting mass shootings.
And, a woman who last week pulled a gun on a McDonald’s drive-thru employee in Seminole County over a free cookie.
Yes, we do have it all in our trigger-happy state, the cozy home of the infamous neighborhood watchman who shot and killed a 17-year-old teen, Trayvon Martin, walking home with candy and soda in his pocket — and got away with murder.
From Pensacola to the Keys, we’re no laid back paradisaical landscape of well-behaved, competent people who will soon have the right to legally carry a concealed weapon — without a permit and without training.
Just what the nut-jobs needed from our governor and state Legislature. They don’t fix the problems we do have, but they can sure pile on new misery.
Raging, trigger-happy Florida
We must not live in the same state.
I’ve seen heated arguments on the road, in parking lots, restaurants and stores — plus, confrontations with security staff manning guardhouses at the entrances of our communities. Nobody pulled out a concealed weapon in any of those instances, so no, I haven’t witnessed a shooting.
But I’m thinking about the elderly man in Broward who felt threatened by an angry driver accosting him and shot him, killing what turned out to be an FBI agent.
I’m thinking of the family man in Southwest Miami-Dade who shot a neighbor over dog poop, ruining two families.
I’m thinking of the two drivers in Nassau County in a road rage argument recently, so out of their minds that one of them shot a .45-caliber handgun and injured two children riding with their dad.
I’m thinking of people filled with racial and ethnically motivated darkness in their souls like the guy in the gray pickup truck waving a Confederate flag in Jacksonville and hollering nonsense. Imagine him free to wave around guns to match his hateful rhetoric.
We’re an angry, violent state.
Add to the mix of crazy, as the Florida Legislature is poised to swiftly do, more easy access to guns in a state where the second-leading cause of death for children is being shot — and nothing good can come out the scenario of more guns out in the open.
So why even go there, lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis? He, who quietly sought to ban guns from his election night celebration in Tampa.
And why not allow more public debate before passing a bill, HB543, close to becoming law before the legislative session even begins? What’s the hurry?
Oh, but there will still be background checks, proponents of this travesty say.
Yes, but you’re increasing the number of people out there with guns at the ready, like in the Wild West. And we live in an era where anger is built into the ambiance.
It comes easily with the territory of hyper-partisan, divisive politics, leadership that instigates it, and the rising cost of living in a “paradise” once seen as affordable and full of opportunity but now stressful to live in and pay for.
The person hitting your car from behind is no longer simply causing an accident, but making already high insurance premiums rise more. The person cutting you off in traffic, the person not serving you as you expect — all become the target of your rage.
And acting on impulse can have grave consequences.
Just ask Pablo Lyle.
The Mexican telenovela actor got angry at a Miami driver and got out of his car. Punched him so hard the man fell to the ground, cracked his head and died. Lyle is now serving a five-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
If he had pulled out a gun and shot him, he would be in prison for life.
Lucky he wasn’t carrying.
No, gun ownership shouldn’t come easy — and it’s no affront to the Second Amendment to say so. Responsible gun owners don’t mind following rules. If you can take a life with a gun, the least you should be asked to do is be required to learn how to use the weapon responsibly.
Democrats have likened the move to lift concealed weapon permitting as removing the requirements to be licensed to drive a car — and it’s no exaggeration.
As with a car, “you have to show competency with a firearm,” said Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, former mayor of Parkland. “So we are saying we are removing your burden to show competency with a firearm.”
But Florida Republicans, beholden to political self-interest and the dollars of the powerful gun industry, seldom legislate these days to benefit the public.
And get this: Gun advocates think this major concession isn’t enough.
They want “constitutional open carry” — a free-for-all.
Let’s just kill each other as long as we can sell and own guns.
And the record shows that, as with abortion and other hot topics, Republicans legislate cracking down piecemeal and in lockstep.
They’ll give the gun lobby a version of the Gunshine State on steroids soon enough.
