Remember when Florida let the NRA’s Ma Hammer write the state’s Stand Your Ground law? That worked out so well that they’re adopting the pistol-packin’ granny’s draft of a new bill to allow armed yahoos to brandish firearms and fire warning shots if they feel threatened.
The theory goes like this: Instead of plugging an annoying movie texter in the chest and killing him outright, an armed citizen could just wave his Beretta around or fire a couple of rounds into the ceiling instead, thus saving lives! It’s a pro-life bill!
Also, the Florida State Senator who is passing off the NRA’s work as his own, Greg Evers, has developed a novel definition of Florida citizenship:
“A person with a firearm is a citizen,” Evers said in a recent committee hearing defending the warning shot bill. “A person without a firearm is a victim.”
Got that? No shootin’ arn, no citizenship. I almost feel sorry for states like Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. Just when they think they can out-douche Florida, we release another douche-o-vation like Wave Yer Gun, and the outright crown for Douchiest State in America is ours once again. Suck it, South Carolina!
Mike G
“A person without a firearm is a victim.”
i.e. Open season on anyone not carrying a gun. If you’re not packin’, then anything that happens to you is your fault.
This will do wonders for Florida’s foreign tourist numbers.
geg6
@Mike G:
I know I’ll never step foot in that state again. Ever.
Yam
So, after said “warning shots,” are you liable for the damage you caused to the surrounding building? Can I sue said “citizen” for the repair necessary from their little tantrum?
monkeyfister
Oh, great!
Now Tennessee is not only going to want this, but are now forced, FORCED, to go out of their way to produce some craptacular legislation to out-douchify Florida.
Thanks a bunch.
Will the madness never stop??!!
monkeyfister
@geg6:
I know that I have absolutely no reason to go there ever.
trollhattan
Holy crap, if that’s not a living definition of sociopath, they need to retire the term. Does the senator have an entire DSM section dedicated to him? Holy crap.
Omnes Omnibus
Waving a gun around is just going cause some other “good guy with a gun” to draw down and go Travis Bickle on the first one. And then the next one…. A cascade of fail and death.
trollhattan
@Yam:
Thus will be borne the Florida “Roofing ventilation repair and restoration act of 2014.” Governor Voldemort will sign it immediately.
amk
All those climate changes and the sea level risings ? Where is it when you want one?
Snarki, child of Loki
I’m starting to see the positive side of global-warming-induced rapid sea level rise and frequent extreme hurricanes.
I’m sure that those gun-packing floridians will sort out who gets to stand on the few square miles left above sea level.
Gex
@geg6: My inlaws keep inviting me to visit them in Florida. I’m half-Asian, but I look Mexican enough to white people. And I’m gay. So pretty much there’s no way in Hell I am voluntarily going to Florida. I’m glad I took one last trip down there in the mid-90’s because I am not going back any time soon.
MikeJ
Hard cases make bad law. They want to make warning shots ok since a woman pulled a gun on her abusive husband/ex/bf/something and fired a warning shot. Had she simply shot him she would have been cleared under SYG. For firing into the air (which is dangerous to random others) she got jail time.
geg6
@monkeyfister:
Whereas I have a lot of friends and relatives who have moved there. I have vacationed there more times than I can count. Fuck that place. If my friends and relatives want to see me, they can come here or settle for pictures on the Book of Faces.
? Martin
Our experiment in democracy demands that this law be passed, along with a large funding increase for the NSF to go to grants for sociologists to study the aftereffects.
dp
I’m going to be looking into Kevlar swimwear for our annual beach vacation to Seagrove.
Fred
@amk: It’ll be along soon enough.
geg6
OT, but I’m watching the replay of Real Time and holy fuck is Mary Matalin trashed. Either that or she’s had a stroke that affects her speech in a way that makes her sound trashed.
dp
Here’s a thought experiment on the “unarmed as victim” notion. If the texting guy in the theater had been packing, what are the chances he would think that an argument about texting would result in the guy he was arguing with pulling a gun and shooting him? I certainly wouldn’t have, so even if I had been armed, I still would have been shot. Of course, I’d have been a shot “citizen,” so there’s that.
These people are insane.
? Martin
I wonder what constitutes a ‘threat’. If my teacher threatens to give me a ‘C’ if I don’t do well on the final, can I put a few in the wall over her desk? It seems to me that popcorn is being interpreted as a threat in this case, why not a poor grade?
monkeyfister
@Snarki, child of Loki:
NO!!! That will spread them inland… like a disease.
Ruckus
I used to like cowboy movies. Six guns and all that. Of course I was 6 yrs old at the time. But even then I realized that people waving around guns was a bad idea. People got shot and died. And even in the movies many towns outlawed the carrying of guns. Because when everyone has a gun, many people get shot. So now some asswipe politician wants everyone to have a gun and be able to take it out and shoot it whenever they want at whomever they want? I didn’t know that 5 yr olds could be elected in FL.
monkeyfister
@geg6:
Only relative I have there is a white supremacist brother I never want to see before his funeral. Even then, someone will have to pay me to attend.
different-church-lady
@MikeJ: Ah yes, the “Trap Happy Porky” model of political solutions to social problems.
beth
Don’t you count us in South Carolina out! This Friday our state senate passed a law allowing holders of concealed weapons permits to carry concealed weapons into bars and restaurants. (Whatever could go wrong??) However, from the newspaper:
Under the proposed law, anyone carrying guns into bars and restaurants would be prohibited from drinking alcohol.
It doesn’t say how bartenders and waitstaff are supposed to know if someone’s carrying a gun if it’s concealed. I guess we’re just not quite ready to cede our title as the “Stupid” Carolina to our brethren up in North Carolina.
different-church-lady
@monkeyfister: If this law passes you might get your opportunity sooner than you’d like.
debbie
There’s the next thing Congress should tackle: No more farming out their jobs. You want a bill, you write it yourself. And swear upon the Constitution that every word is yours.
Zam
@beth: Can bars still impose a no gun policy? If not I wonder if anyone will ask why these republicans hate small business.
Yastreblyansky
@monkeyfister: But in Tennessee you can carry in a bar, which Florida for some reason doesn’t allow. I say the senior senator should broker a deal in which each state adopted the other’s law–you could call it a brandish Alexander?
beltane
@beth: Furthermore, a bartender asking someone if they are carrying a gun could be considered just the kind of threat gun carriers are allowed to eradicate.
Roger Moore
@Yam:
And what happens if they wind up hitting an innocent bystander? I’m imagining somebody who lives in an apartment firing a few warning shots into the ceiling, forgetting that it’s the floor of the apartment above. I guess it’s the upstairs neighbor’s fault for not deciding that the downstairs neighbor is threatening them and plugging them first.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Even more important. They have to have actually read the damn thing. And I think before they vote they have to sign a sworn statement that they have.
monkeyfister
@different-church-lady:
I would not mourn him if it did happen. I would finally feel safe. I would dance around a while, and send money to the shooter’s defense fund– no matter how criminal he might be.
different-church-lady
OK, so what happens when one guy with a gun threatens another guy with a gun, and one of the guys fires a warning shot and the other guy takes that as a threat and shoots the first guy and then claims S.Y.G?
And which Florida municipality will be the first to legalize High Noon gunfights on Main Street?
Bargal20
“A person with a firearm is a citizen. A person without a firearm is a victim.”
Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?
LeftCoastTom
@beth:
If someone shoots themselves in the ass the bartender will stop serving them drinks.
WereBear
I do find this turn of events extraordinarily bizarre (and mind you, I spent ten formative years in Florida, and still have relatives there) because Florida reveres tourist dollars.
Far more than they care for their actual residents.
Are they looking for the rootin’-tootin’ tourist dollar?
beltane
@Roger Moore: Really, people who haven’t chosen to barricade themselves in an underground bunker with a 100 years’ worth of supplies is fair game for True Freedom Loving Citizens and Patriots. If it lives it not only CAN be shot, but DESERVES to be shot.
This is what happens when laws are written by and for a bunch of well-armed, perpetually frighted cowards lacking all respect for human life.
charluckles
This is a new low. The very idea of brandishing firearms or firing warning shots violates gun safety as it was taught to me. Warning shots? That’s insane.
And am I the only one who thinks the NRA and it’s membership is starting to act like the very “thugs” they all claim to be needing to protect themselves from? Brandishing firearms and shooting random warning shots, no duty to retreat? Are you a gang-banger now?
MattF
So, just theoretically, what happens if one of these fired-into-the-air bullets comes down to earth (gravity, it’s the law!) and kills someone?
aimai
@WereBear: Maybe there is a reserve of Yosemite Sam tourists who want to come to florida only if they can wave their guns around.
Ash Can
The moral of the story is, stay the hell out of Florida.
TriassicSands
@? Martin:
Why on earth would we need sociologists to study and report on the law’s effects? That’s what the NRA is for. And they can write their conclusions before the law is enacted, saving both time and money.
vhh
I think that organizations defending rights of minoritiea like blacks, Hispanics, and gay ppl should promote carry permits for these folks as a way to assert their citizenship and get first class voter IDs. As a bonus, the thought of armed black Spanish speaking lesbians monitoring public conduct might scare the wingnuts into supporting sensible gun control.
Ruckus
@charluckles:
Starting to act like thugs? Starting?
You’re kidding right? Starting?
Ever hear of the concept of projection?
WereBear
@geg6: OMG, that is exactly what Mr WereBear said!
Within five seconds he’s all, “She is so drunk” and I’m all, “Geddouda here, she’s on national television with her husband twenty feet away.”
But durned if he wasn’t right.
WereBear
@geg6: OMG, that is exactly what Mr WereBear said!
Within five seconds he’s all, “She is so drunk” and I’m all, “Geddouda here, she’s on national television with her husband twenty feet away.”
But durned if he wasn’t right.
scav
@Bargal20:
A) We should then expect to see some expansion of cushy, high-end military slots for the right sort in order to better preserve voting privileges (although the truly funded will continue to
buyinfluence at a higher level of political involvement.B) That backdoor for ravening hordes of ferocious illegals to infiltrate into the holy booths might not fly with some.
monkeyfister
@Yastreblyansky:
This is true. We’ve had that for a couple of years now. The governor signed it under great pressure, and an override of his veto assured, but only with the amendment that TN Bar Owners can prohibit guns in their establishments and properties, so there is at least that. Results appear to be shaping up as expected. Bars around my area were pretty rough already. This law assured I’d never go out to a place that sells booze ever again. So, gain for me, bad for the state.
Glocksman
Hell, even I think this is a lousy idea and I’m pro-gun.
Legally and morally you aren’t justified in pulling a gun, much less firing it, unless you are in immediate danger of serious bodily harm or death.
Mere threats themselves aren’t justification because the person must have the means and ability to carry out said threat.
Most jurisdictions also add that you can’t be the aggressor or have initiated the confrontation*
Lessening the standard just makes it more likely that some other yahoo will get away with manslaughter like Zimmerman did, or even worse, plot to murder someone under cover of this law.
*In some states it’s OK for the initial aggressor to use deadly force in self defense if, as my state’s laws put it:
beltane
@MattF: That person would have deserved it because they didn’t fire in the air first. It’s kill or be killed in the Sunshine State.
I imagine that the rootin’ tootin’ tourists Florida wants to attract aren’t the type to spend much money on nice hotels or restaurants.
Haydnseek
@Bargal20: Well played trooper, well played.
raven
Bout 40 minutes til kickoff. Just sayin.
Davis X. Machina
@Bargal20: Think of it as the Test Act for our official unofficial state religion.
Haydnseek
@MattF: It means it’s 12:01 on January 1st. Happens every year.
WereBear
@aimai: Puts a whole new spin on the Magic Kingdom idea… maybe Westworld wasn’t science fiction!
Howard Beale IV
So that means all the migrant Hispanics here illegally become legal if they carry a firearm.
So THAT’s how they’re gonna solve that problem-Brilliant!
beltane
@Howard Beale IV: Nah. He says a person with a firearm is a citizen. Wingnut that he is, he wouldn’t consider Hispanic people to be persons.
Roger Moore
@charluckles:
Of course not; everyone knows gangbangers are blah.
KG
In the immortal words of Johnny Cash… Don’t take your guns to town, son, don’t take your guns to town
Gex
@beth: The same way we always do it. Once someone has shot and killed a person, THEN we realize they are armed and shouldn’t be. One free homicide for every gun owner. As specified in the Constitution.
@MattF: Last time I was in Arizona around some sort of holiday, this exact thing happen. Some idiot fired into the air to celebrate. Bullet came down and killed an infant.
It was the most astounding demonstration of how awesome freedom under the Second Amendment can be. If I can’t kill infants, am I truly free?
Jay S
Hey a republican plan for a path to citizenship! Do you suppose he was being ironic?
[ETA] Ah I see others got there while I was writing.
muddy
@MattF: Gravity is only a theory, like all sciencey stuff.
BillinGlendaleCA
Will that be the new voter ID in Florida?
Jay S
Not if they kill there own kid, because that’s just a tragic accident. Or they claim they were standing their ground.
BillinGlendaleCA
@geg6: A lot of the “Green Rooms” serve booze to the guests before the show starts; so I’d not be surprised if she was drunk. Given who the host is, there might have been something else as well, but he might not want to share his supply.
JPL
@beth: Bar’s will be sued for serving those carrying concealed weapons. That should lead to some interesting court discussion.
? Martin
Obama should have the State Department issue a travel advisory to Americans traveling to Florida if this passes.
kc
In South Carolina you can go outside, fire wildly at a car, miss the car, shoot (and kill) an innocent kid in the next yard over, and go free.
So you got a ways to go, Florida, before you catch up with South Carolina.
WereBear
@BillinGlendaleCA: Pot doesn’t make you slur (went to high school in the 1970’s.) If she was stoned, she would have stared into the distance for five minutes before answering.
And Bill would have been more attentive to what she had to say.
Scott S.
“A person with a firearm is a citizen,” Evers said in a recent committee hearing defending the warning shot bill. “A person without a firearm is a victim.”
I’m still expecting one of these wingnut states to decide that crimes committed with guns are actually legal. Prosecuting someone for opening fire on a schoolyard full of children? That violates the Second Amendment!
burnspbesq
@beth:
Metal detector at the door. If you set it off, your hand gets stamped.
Yeah, like that’ll work.
RaflW
My honey and I are hoping to vacation after he completes his ordination process at the end of March. We’ve been talking about Ft Lauderdale and Key West.
But I think we may forgo that and assuming we do, I will photocopy our checkout invoice from whatever hotel we stay at in some other warm non-FL locale, and mail it along with that quote up top to the Florida Visitors Bureau and the FL Chamber of Commerce.
As an openly gay unarmed couple, that there Evers shit he’s sayin’ is tooooooo crazy.
RepubAnon
The more people carrying guns, the easier it is for the surviving shooter to claim to be standing their ground: “He made a move toward his waist, so I drew and shot him… how could I have known he was reaching for his cell phone rather than a gun? Everyone carries a gun, right?”
On a side note, remember that movie: “The Quick and the Dead“, where there’s a showdown contest for professional gunslingers? Florida sounds as though they’re getting ready to legalize such contests, together with, say, duels.
Mob hits would be much easier in Florida: lure the victim to a parking garage, claim they acted in a threatening manner, and shoot them.
YellowJournalism
So I see the next Zimmerman defense clearly under this law:
“Your Honor, I fired a warning shot, but then he started running away! Would an innocent person run away from someone randomly firin a gun in the air? You see, I had to chase him down!”
Origuy
How long before the Florida legislature makes it legal to bring guns into Disney World? One guy managed to sneak his in last May and lost it on the Dinosaur ride. Some of the commenters on that page are trying to justify bringing in guns.
Disney would certainly fight that; you don’t mess with the Mouse.
aimai
@burnspbesq: It would work if they cut off the hand. Just sayin’.
YellowJournalism
@WereBear: I’m pretty sure they mentioned that she had been in an accident very recently, possibly that day. I bet she was loaded on painkillers.
RaflW
In a note of Internet perfection, the ad above this entry, for me courtesy of ad(non)sense I’d guess, is John Cornyn’s ‘protect the 2nd amendment’ fundraising ad. I clicked to give JGC a fraction if a penny, and to keep the googlz ad machine feeding me the winger crap.
charluckles
@RaflW:
Key West isn’t Florida. It’s the Conch Republic.
It’s really a shame. Florida has some absolutely incredible places, no one should go through this life without a trip to the Everglades and the Keys.
22over7
I’m getting worried about this mindset. My newspaper spent the whole week writing about the Roswell school shooting as a “tragedy,” as if it were a frickin’ tornado. Splashed across the front page were pictures of people praying, brandishing signs begging for love and courage, trying to appease the new, terrible god by prayer and supplication.
This is a really bad way to approach this problem.
Comrade Dread
@Omnes Omnibus: With any luck, hopefully they’ll cull the aggressive morons, sociopaths, and gun nuts within the first week and the normal folks can take their state back.
cain
@kc:
when did that happen?!
Mike in NC
We’re staying in the Tampa area, where the Sunday Tampa Tribune offered op-eds by George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and Pat Buchanan (!). Some diversity there. Even our wingnut SC paper doesn’t feature Pat.
In addition to SYG, the region is known for sinkholes that eat both houses and people, as well as lethal lightning storms. Won’t be house-hunting anytime soon.
WaterGirl
@? Martin: Just wanted to wish you happy birthday before your birthday week ends. Hope you are having a good one!
The Other Bob
@Bargal20:
Nice Starship Troopers reference. Or we could think of it as the Dream Act for the NRA.
Yam
@Roger Moore: I’m quite sure that if any living thing is hit, that is not an issue — no big deal. But, PROPERTY RIGHTS!
kc
@cain:
Last year . . .
karen
Does that mean anyone who feels “threatened” by anyone can fire warning shots and is the firing of warning shots code for shoot to kill?
gbear
So when does the insurance industry just up and say ‘Fuck you, Florida’? Nobody with a gun gets liability insurance.
PaulW
If owning a gun becomes mandatory, we are all doomed.
It’s not the gun itself that’s the problem: it’s that there’s too many self-absorbed self-justified morans with anger management problems ready to go with a gun as a solution rather than calling the cops or a store manager to control a situation.
And the thing is, A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS ARE NOT GUN OWNERS. Only 37 percent of Americans claim to live in a household with at least one firearm http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/04/a-minority-of-americans-own-guns-but-just-how-many-is-unclear/ which gives us about 63 percent who don’t have a gun on their person or in the house. 63 PERCENT AMERICANS DO NOT WORSHIP THE GUN, NRA. Yet who speaks for the 63 percent?
WHO SPEAKS FOR THE 80 PERCENT OF ALL AMERICANS WHO WANT UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS?
God damn these gun nuts. God DAMN them.
PaulW
@gbear:
They already have. A lot of them won’t insure property in Florida anymore.
sm*t cl*de
Intimidation by way of a death threat is OK if the intimidation uses the right Magic Weapon.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman:
To be fair, the decision to locate in Florida was made a long time before it went total gun nut crazy. Still, I have a major distaste for the state (Betty is about the only exception) and if I can help it, and right now I can, not touching that place with a 30 foot pike.
Steve S
Fine. We have no use for chickens. They’re boring.
Steve S
I thought the same thing. WTF was up with her?
John M. Burt
@22over7: What do you mean our “new” god…?
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/dec/15/our-moloch/
22over7
@John M. Burt: fa@John M. Burt</a Fair enough.
Arclite
@The Other Bob: Yeah, as soon as I read that Senator’s comment, Starship Troopers shot to mind. Given that Heinlein made Scientology, I don’t think you really want to emulate any of his Big Ideas.
karen
@Arclite:
Didn’t L Ron Hubbard make Scientology?
Tehanu
@vhh:
You took the words right off of my keyboard. Somebody ought to ask the “State Senator” why he thinks possession of a gun automatically makes a person a citizen … and watch him try to squirm out of admitting he meant “white citizen” and “white victim.”
billB
Hey Disney folks, hotel owners, biz people, I and all of my family will never come to Fl til you make it a safe place from gun-nuts.
JR
@karen: Only after Robert H. dared him to.
Ruckus
@JR:
He didn’t have to accept the dare.
Matt
@different-church-lady:
I’d say that the Earth just got one trigger-happy overcompensating paranoid assclown lighter, and cheer.
I’m far more concerned about people who aren’t aware they now live in a Grand Theft Auto / Wild West crossover LARP who get killed by the stray rounds.
The Other Chuck
@WereBear: No, but it doef give you cotton mouf.
johnny aquitard
@charluckles:
No. You are spot-on on this.
But they’ve been working at this thuggery for at least 30 years.
RobNYNY1957
I would think that if you were to brandish a guy and/or fire a warning shot, that would trigger someone else’s right to kill you.
moops
In case anyone was still reading here…..