I’m not a huge fan of Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn (he’s no Pam Iorio). But to his credit, he was able to imagine tens of thousands of pissed-off citizens, drunken yahoos, strip-club happy-hour ejectees, belligerent teabaggers, endlessly circling Hoveround grannies and assorted other malcontents milling around the RNC — with guns! — and recognize that it might be a problem.
So he asked state seal-embossed ambulatory dildo and future one-term Governor Rick Scott for an exception to the area’s concealed carry laws, which basically require everyone over the age of five to pack a 9mm, and received an NRA-drafted missive by return post:
The short answer to your request is found in the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution…You note that the City’s temporary ordinance regulates “sticks, poles and water guns,” but that firearms are a “noticeable item missing from the City’s temporary ordinance.” Firearms are noticeably included, however, in the 2nd Amendment.
Sweet bandoliered Jeebus, what a condescending prick. Well, at least Buckhorn covered his ass. If there’s a shoot-out at the No Gay Corral this August, no one can pin it on him.
dedc79
I’m sure Florida’s “state regulated militia” will keep visiting Republican officials safe….
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am curious how Romney’s Secret Service detail will take this (besides to a strip club)?
Honestly, that would be pathetic if Romney was shot by some drunk teatard angry over God only know what. Martyr Mittens, the once and future prince of the Right along with endless Wingnut paranoia on how it was an Obama hit.
JPL
@dedc79: Fortunately, Zimmerman isn’t available. I’m sure there are others standing by to take his place though.
Culture of Truth
Firearms are noticeably included, however, in the 2nd Amendment
well it says “arms” if he’s going to such a dick about it
Xecky Gilchrist
What’s the problem? An armed society is a polite society, amirite? And Republicans are all about civility, amirite? Therefore there should be infinity guns everywhere.
Mike G
Funny how quickly these no-gun-control politicians change their tune when it comes to their personal safety. Living among gun nuts is only for us peasants.
If gun-toting citizens make everyone safer, wouldn’t they feel much more secure addressing a crowd knowing there are dozens of armed civilians throughout the audience?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I don’t remember the second amendment saying anything about firearms.
It annoys me that somehow you’re not allowed to defend yourself with katanas and bow staffs, but bullets are OK.
JGabriel
BREAKING NEWS!
Off-Topic, but of far too great an import to not share immediately:
Atlas Shrugged, PART 2(!) is scheduled for release in October 2012!
Oh, you cannot comprehend how I anticipate the next installment of rich business people vacuously and emotionlessly talking about sex, business, and choo-choo trains, while battling a world of leechy sociaIist caricatures.
.
Anonymous At Work
I had a mild heart attack reading the memo’s line about “disarming law-abiding citizens” wouldn’t decrease the potential for violence. People with firearms are typically law-abiding until the moment they use the firearms to shot someone. It’s a good thing that security details are reality-based, unlike the memo…
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Shorter Rick Scott:
“I’m more worried about pissing off the NRA than I am about innocent people being shot during the Republican convention.
dmsilev
@JGabriel: You forgot to link to the trailer.
J
@Culture of Truth: Not just a dick but a cretin.
‘Arms’ meaning weapons is from the Latin, i.e., well established long before the invention of gunpowder!
Johnny B
I’m confused. Why doesn’t Governor Scott believe that the protections of the 2nd Amendment extend to inside the GOP convention as well as the “safe zone” outside? It sounds like he is creating a “safe zone” that extends to places where the patriotic, gun-loving, gun-toting conventioneers will be located Why would these patriots need such socialistic protection? Such “safe zones” are an anathema to the 2nd Amendment. As everyone knows, gun toting in large crowds makes for a safer crowd.
The GOP conventioneers have a constitutional right to be armed and dangerous. If they can’t wield and fire their guns inside the arena, how can they possibly exercise their 2nd Amendment (not to mention their 1st Amendment) rights? My God, there will be known communists, like Rachel Maddow, broadcasting from inside the convention. There will also be present other un-American provocateurs who are hostile to the conservative agenda—people like Mitt Romney.
Armed conventioneers must be allowed to put such radicals on notice that they will not let them destroy our nation. I’m hoping that Governor Scott reconsiders his hostility to the 2nd Amendment.
rlrr
@J:
But there was an episode of Star Trek which featured Romans with machine guns…
roseyviolet
Recently I’ve been thinking that if the Occupy movement really wants to take root in states like Florida (or any of the others that have these laws) all they have to do is show up armed to the teeth. I’m not suggesting they actually shoot anyone, or even load their firearms, necessarily. Just show up at the places they want to occupy carrying guns. It wouldn’t work everywhere — in NYC, for instance, it would just get them sent to Gitmo. But in much of the south, as I understand it, it would basically guarantee their right to peacefully assemble pretty much indefinitely.
Cliff in NH
where oh where is that well regulated militia at?
you know, the one that the people with the guns are supposed to form…
TR
Yeah, no way this is going to end poorly. At all.
roseyviolet
Of course the other great advantage would be that as soon as any of them actually did it, the local government would suddenly realize what terrible, awful laws these are after all, and strike them from the books as soon as humanly possible.
TR
@roseyviolet:
Actually, an armed Occupy protest would be the quickest way to roll back Florida’s idiotic pro-gun laws.
Just like when the Black Panthers exercised their rights to openly display firearms in California, and the state’s legislators realized that, holy shit, it’s not just *our* kind of people who can do that, and quickly repealed a lot of the open-carry laws there.
ETA: Looks like you beat me to it.
rlrr
@Johnny B:
Will Ted Nugent be a delegate?
mistermix
That’s some poetry there. I liked “ambulatory dildo”, too.
JGabriel
dmsilev:
I did, mea culpa.
.
rlrr
@JGabriel:
I thought it was already released…
Jay in Oregon
This is from the same party that created “free speech zones” well away from public appearances, so Bush the Lesser didn’t have to be bothered by people waving signs and wearing T-shirts.
Martin
@rlrr: Hey, maybe he’ll be VP.
rlrr
@Martin:
Two draft dodgers on the same ticket? IOKIYAR
WereBear
Mmmmm hmmmm, vacation paradise! Who doesn’t want their strip club full of firearms? Most exciting vacay evah!
PurpleGirl
Field trip Field trip Field trip
A Balloon Juice meet-up to go see Atlas Shrugged part II.
Think about it… It could be a lot of fun. We’d probably own the theater for that showing.
rlrr
@PurpleGirl:
Might be an opportunity for some MST3K style riffing…
Ben Cisco
@Mike G:
Gun safety for me but not for thee, apparently…
Ash Can
I say let all the law-abiding folks in Tampa take a weekend trip out of town for the duration of the convention, and just let natural selection take over.
Betty Cracker
@Ben Cisco: Literally. Guns are allowed at beaches, libraries, parks, etc. But not the state legislature.
Martin
@rlrr: Hey, worked in 2000.
Another Halocene Human
Yeah, why can’t I open carry a katana?
I went to a media convention in VA about ten years ago and we were told if our stage weapons weren’t peace bonded there were undercover police officers with concealed-carry who were empowered to shoot us on sight.
Police state ahoy!
I’d love to bludgeon every goober who says they need to own automatic weapons in case the US Army declares war on the American people with that statement, in the head, until he bleeds (or she, I mean, there are some Pamela Gellars out there).
Ash Can
@PurpleGirl: It could become the new Rocky Horror Picture Show, except with no music, and bonus horror.
PurpleGirl
@rlrr: Exactly.
Ash can: That too. I was just thinking it could be a new Rocky Horror Picture Show thingy. Lefties hanging out at a midnight show… the snark in a floor show would be incredible.
Another Halocene Human
@Betty Cracker: Lol, and just try getting into the state capitol building with a wheelchair. Talk about armed and dangerous!
Rathskeller
Of course, the open-carry laws in California, permitting firearms in public if they were openly displayed, was exploited by the Black Panthers, who trotted around Oakland with rifles at their side.
The exact same dynamic could be exploited here by anti-GOP provacateurs, with one major difference is that we’d have to hear the endless squealing from Fox as if Roger Ailes had gotten his dick slammed in a desk drawer. Probably not worth it.
kindness
Remember that WKRP episode (OK, dating myself) where Les dropped live turkeys from a helicopter over a crowd during a pre-holiday celebration? What if….what if some unidentified group dropped liquor over the RNC convention grounds & just a bit later lots and lots of cheap Saturday Night Specials? Yea, it’d be havok. It’s be immoral. It’d be hell, but I’d bet those people would make our arguments better than anything we could say.
Patricia Kayden
So the city can regulate “sticks, poles and water guns,” but not firearms? Makes perfect sense in rightwing world. Because sticks, poles and water guns are more dangerous than firearms, of course. Duh.
Another Halocene Human
The weapons search to get in the state capitol–just in the door–the galleries have their own security–is quite frankly insulting.
I also love how there are all these knives that are illegal to carry in certain circumstances, but if you make your obeisances to Smith&Wesson you can take that motherfucker just about anyway.
How much more obvious can this be that the NRA is an industry front group? Speaking of which, maybe the knife manufacturers need their own lobby. Lolol.
Another Halocene Human
Hey, don’t knives “almost always” hit the target? Fingertips cut off in kitchen accidents notwithstanding.
rlrr
@Patricia Kayden:
I saw this anti-drug commercial that showed a kid smoking pot in his dad’s room with his friend. This kid finds a gun, the gun accidentally goes off and kills his friend. Only in America is the villain in this commercial not guns or bad parenting, but pot.
— Bill Maher
Dave
To be utterly cynical and political about this, it would be the GOP death-knell if something went wrong in Tampa thanks to an ALEC-written, NRA-driven law defended by an asshole Republican governor during the GOP convention…and all America saw it on television.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Hot damn. I’m brining a suitcase full of firecrackers and my best running shoes.
gaz
@”Fair and Balanced” Dave (reply button broke, FYWP!)
And why not? There’s a good chance that those people getting shot, aren’t “innocent” at all, but are filthy librul soshulists!
If anything, he gets a tiny bump in his election chances, and if he really strikes gold someone will put a hole in an elected Democrat’s head.
So, WIN!, amirite?
/snark
kindness
Does the NRA allow visitors to be armed?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Dave: Unless the shooter was brown or the target was brown.
Mickey
What could possibly go wrong!
Schlemizel
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Since the convention center – and a large area roped off around it – are controlled by the Secret Service during the convention they will ban guns within a few blocks of the convention. The Feds over rule the State, another reason to support states rights!!
My fervent hope is that if there must be shootings they will be of GOP delegates & not some innocent protestors or dumb sucker that just happens to live in that toilet with palm trees.
gbear
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I was thinking the same thing. Drop a packed of firecrackers into the middle of this crowd and watch the mayhem. Maybe use part of a cigarette as a delayed-action fuse so you could get the hell away before they went off.
Another Halocene Human
@Schlemizel: I wonder why the NRA hasn’t taken on the Secret Service.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@roseyviolet: Wasn’t the Black Panthers peacefully exercising their 2nd Amendment Rights that set off the wave of gun control laws in the first place?
TenguPhule
Like Unicorns and Santa Claus, no such thing.
chopper
i think it would be rad as shit if a bunch of black guys came to the RNC dressed as black panthers openly carrying guns and just milling about.
gene108
@Dave:
Nah…the problem is not enough people were armed, someone thought they could gain an advantage by shooting first…
You’d probably end up with a few mandatory carry laws, so everyone had a gun and no one thought they could gain an advantage by shooting first.
Think of it like Cold War era MAD thinking applied to the walk down to the corner store.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@chopper: radness aside, I would not be volunteering for that job. Wrong color, for starters, but my main issue is that I don’t think any of them would make it out of town alive.
PurpleGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Historically, gun control laws go back to the early 20th century when you had an influx of those anarchistic Italians… think Sacco and Vanzetti.
brendancalling
I would LOVE it if some of these yahoos shot each other. please please please.
John M. Burt
I sincerely hope nobody gets killed or injured or has a heart attack after being threatened with a drawn gun at the RNC thanks to Florida’s gun absurdity, but I would rejoice if some high-profile Repub were to pee his pants on camera during a drawdown incident.
Origuy
From the Articles of Confederation, article VI:
A well-regulated militia wasn’t a guy with a closet full of automatic weapons, it was something organized by the states, since the Continental Army had disbanded after the war.
Ken
So do I have to remove the bayonet from my assault rifle, or are blades OK if they’re attached to guns?
Lihtox
So do the Florida state government buildings not have metal detectors, then?
Punchy
I’d expect Polish Floridians to be pissed about this.
Schlemizel
Ever wonder if Floriduh’s SYG law is applied differently between races? Well, wonder no more:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/05/why-couldnt-marissa-alexander-stand-her-ground-florida/51775/
This woman fought off her abusive husband & fired a warning shot A WARNING SHOT but was denied SYG by the same prosecutor that has overcharged Zimmerman which will allow him to walk.
Bill Murray
@kindness: Mr. Carlson dropped the turkeys. Les reported live from the parking lot they were to be dropped into.
droog
I take it this was not intended as a factual statement, what with all the Republicans assembling and what not.
Haydnseek
@kindness: Can’t help but supply the finish to the scene…Les realizes these turkeys can’t fly, shouts “OH, THE HUMANITY!” Great show.
Recall
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
They had a number of shootouts as well.
jefft452
“Firearms are noticeably included, however, in the 2nd Amendment”
“Firearms” are noticeably ABSENT in the 2nd Amendment
in 18th Cen terminology:
“Arms” are edged weapons like Pikes an Swords
“Guns” are cannon
Muskets, Rifles, and Pistols are “FireLocks”
A musket with a fixed bayonet is an “Arm”, because now it is a spear
“Firearm” is not a term that the founders would recognize
Rebel
Will you share? Obviously you have an adequate supply of recreational drugs and rose colored glasses.
jefft452
@Rebel: “Will you share”
why certainly, us commies are like that, after all
“The Manual Exercise, As ordered by his Majesty, In 1764”
or, if you are so inclined, Von Steuben’s 1777 manual
Point to the word “Firearm”, hmmm, not there
notice what happens when “Fix Bayonet” is ordered
Prior to this order your weapon is referred to a “Firelock”, after it is an “Arm”
Try going thru the motions with an 11 lb, 6 foot long land service musket.
“Rest your Firelock”/”Rest your Arms” isnt restful, it makes the muscles in your arms burn
Its called “Rest” because a 20 foot pike would comfortably be based on the ground and you can keep the pointy bit from wobbling about with minimal effort – the manual of “arms” was written with pikes in mind
pattonbt
@kindness: “As God as my witness, I thought Turkeys could fly”.
My favorite single TV episode ever.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@brendancalling:
I would LOVE it if some of these yahoos shot each other. please please please.
You do sorta wonder what would happen if some prankster dropped some fireworks in the middle of a teabagger crowd at these events…