 | |
Obama's under-the-radar gun control | |
| Not long ago, the gun control advocates Jim and Sarah Brady visited the White House. President Barack Obama reportedly told them that he was working on new gun control schemes “under the radar.” It’s been said that guns have two enemies – rust and politicians. Rust never sleeps, and neither do those who would seek to restrict our constitutional rights. So let me tell you about a meeting you weren’t invited to, where those people were planning an attack on our rights that’s very much “under the radar.” It happened in July at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at a meeting to draft of what they call the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. An Arms Trade Treaty doesn’t sound bad in concept — isn’t that what the U.N is for? The problem, however, is what U.N. diplomats consider to be “arms.” To you and me, the word means tanks, fighter jets, missiles, that kind of thing. But look no further than the U.N. plaza to see what the silk-stocking set considers “arms.” There you will find a bronze statue of a simple .38 revolver — with its barrel tied into a knot. Remember no other country in the world enjoys America’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is why the vast majority of U.N. diplomats believe that an arms trade treaty must reach into your gun safe and mine. There is little question that this treaty would require additional restrictions on our Second Amendment rights. Consider the comments of a spokesman from “Project Ploughshares,” a Canadian arms control group. “From a humanitarian perspective,” the spokesman told the Canadian Postmedia News “all firearms need to be controlled, and that’s the bottom line.” This attitude has spooked even Canada’s government, which typically embraces a disarmament agenda. During the meeting, Canada put forth a panicky petition for a hunting rifle exemption in the treaty. Mexico immediately objected. For an administration with a secretive itch for gun control, the situation is ideal. They can let the United Nations do the dirty work of drafting onerous new restrictions on civilian firearms, then package them inside a treaty with legitimate measures to control true military armaments. The U.N. has scheduled the treaty to be finished in July of next year — just in time to go to the Obama White House for ratification. That’s “under the radar” for you. But one risk of operating under the radar is that you can’t see the moves of your opponents. This is not the first U.N. gun-control rodeo for my friends at the National Rifle Association. They know treaty ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Thirty-four senators would have to vote no to block the treaty. While the rest of Washington was fixated on the debt ceiling debate, the NRA quietly marshaled opposition to the treaty among pro-gun senators. Fifty-eight senators have now called out the president on his plan. Led by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), 45 Republicans and 13 Democrats have written two strong letters —one from members of each party — to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. All the senators have vowed to oppose any treaty that restricts civilian firearm ownership. What’s ironic is that the United States already has the world’s preeminent system for regulation of true military arms sales. If the rest of the world merely adopted the U.S. regulatory regime, there would be no need for an Arms Trade Treaty. But rather than harmonize other nations’ patchy regulations on arms transfers, the diplomatic crowd would rather force Washington to hew to its utopian vision of global disarmament. If this were only a partisan exercise in bashing Obama and the U.N., one could be forgiven for concluding it has no substance. But 13 Democratic senators clearly think otherwise — a sign that this debate is far from over. Chuck Norris, an actor, martial artist and author, is the honorary chairman of the National Rifle Association’s voter registration program, Trigger the Vote. | |
 © 2011 POLITICO LLC |
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
In defense of women and guns
Among women, the fastest-growing group of concealed handgun license owners in Texas is African American
By Joshunda Sanders AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 8:43 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011
My first encounter with a gun was when I was 6 years old. It was December 1984, and as my mother and I walked across a bridge from Harlem to the Bronx in New York City, two men came up behind us intending to take the faux mink coat she was wearing, which looked unfortunately real under the dull orange streetlights. One of them put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if she didn't turn over the coat. I can still remember the quarters clanging on the concrete beneath our feet as they snatched the coat, let me go and took off into the night.
That sense of vulnerability and fear followed me into adulthood, when I found myself, as an African American single woman, working as a reporter in Beaumont in 2001.
In addition to the pressures of learning how to be a reporter, learning Texas and being far from home, I was warned in the newsroom about active clusters of Ku Klux Klan activity. It had only been a few years since James Byrd Jr., a black man, had been beaten by white men and dragged to his death in nearby Jasper.
It wasn't until the recent debates over concealed handgun licenses on campuses and my own curiosity about learning how to shoot that I decided it was time to apply for my own license. After a trip to Ladies' Day at Red's Indoor Range in Pflugerville, I almost reconsidered. Then a LivingSocial coupon for a Gunfighter's Clinic course showed up in my inbox, and I decided to go for it.
It surprised me to discover that I was part of a larger trend in Texas. Applications for concealed carry permits began rising in the state before the 2008 elections, an increase some attributed to concerns that anti-gun politicians would be voted in . Of the total number of licenses granted, women made up 21.9 percent in 2010, up from 17.7 percent in 2001, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. For reasons that are unclear, black women are the fastest-growing group of women being issued licenses for concealed handguns in the state.
Academics, experts and gun safety instructors have disagreed for decades about how popular guns are with women. Part of the ongoing dispute reflects what The Atlantic wisely noted in its September issue as an ongoing and unresolved battle in American culture between gun control and gun rights activists. Nationwide, the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that in 2009, the number of women buying guns for personal defense was up 83 percent.
University of Richmond professor Laura Browder, author of "Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America" says that the visibility of female hunters such as Sarah Palin in popular culture has lifted some of the stigma of gun ownership for most women - whether they use those guns for personal defense or for hunting. "Palin has brought women's gun ownership back into the public sphere in a way that it hasn't been," Browder said.
But since the 1980s, professors across the country have argued that the media and gun industry have enlarged the scenario of unmarried women fearing for their safety in urban environments earning their licenses for protection against violent crime. Browder said in her 2006 book that women earning licenses "as a defense against anonymous violence" was in part because the gun industry uses the fear of violence to scare women into buying guns.
But my fear is grounded not just in my personal history, but in a collective one.
Adam Winkler, author of the forthcoming book, "Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right to Bear Arms in America," traced the birth of the modern gun rights movement to the Black Panthers in the September issue of The Atlantic. In it was a fact of history that I'd never heard: "Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied," Winkler wrote. "But from then on, armed supporters guarded his home."
Closer to my demographic was the historian Danielle McGuire's book, "At the Dark End of the Street," which fills out commonly told stories about Rosa Parks and other women of the civil rights movement who were subjected not just to racial intimidation but also sexual violence. Among the most jarring stories of black women attacked in the South, sometimes by police officers, was the story of Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old mother and sharecropper who in 1944, as she walked home after attending church at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Ala., was snatched from the street by seven white men armed with knives and shotguns. They raped her and left her for dead. It was Rosa Parks, the president of the local NAACP branch office, who was sent to investigate Taylor's case.
Sure, both the robbery from my childhood and the rape of Taylor were decades ago. But as a homeowner who lives in the South and aspires to travel unfettered to places where I might be viewed more as a target than a benevolent visitor, earning a concealed handgun license seemed the best way to quell my personal fear.
And in order to get that license, I needed to spend at least 10 hours with Mathew Williams, an instructor with Austin-based Gunfighter's Clinic, and pass a state background check.
Part of Williams' class is a 200-slide presentation explaining Texas gun-ownership laws. There were four other women in the class. Among them was a thin blond woman named Chris, who asked me not to use her last name. She said she came to the class with her husband, Bruce, and their adult daughter mainly out of curiosity, after Bruce's pastor took the Boston native out hunting and got him thinking about applying for his concealed handgun license.
Chris and her daughter decided to join Bruce for the class.
"I'm not a very big woman myself," Chris said. "And so, if something happens to Bruce, I want to be able to protect my home. And because I'm not very big, a man could do whatever he wanted with me. A gun seems like it would level the playing field."
Williams, who seemed to regard less lethal methods of self-defense with a lot of skepticism, said that he had a 30 percent increase in the number of women showing up in his classes, which meet the state's public safety requirements for concealed handgun licensing. Generally, the courses cost upward of $100, and the application for the concealed handgun course is about $140, not including fingerprinting fees and the cost of passport photos. Williams' class, which is combined with a legal response program that includes information about what to do if you have to shoot someone, costs about $400, though it was $198 with the coupon.
Williams, a gunsmith, insomniac and father of two teaches the 10-hour training course four times a week, he said.
"Chivalry is dead," he said. "Male criminals think nothing nowadays of shooting a woman." At home, his two daughters are well-versed in marksmanship - the 7-year-old has a rifle and a handgun and his 5-year-old will soon have her own rifle, he said. It was the first time I had heard anyone mention children owning guns, but he says in the class that the best way to prevent children's injury with firearms is to educate them about how to use them. (And to keep them in locked cases.)
There are other things to consider. The personal injury rates for firearms in homicide and suicide in this country are higher than they are in any other industrialized nation. And violent crimes in America dropped significantly in 2010, to what appears to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years.
While Chris and I, her daughter and Bruce braved the 106-degree heat with our other classmates in Hays County, a man starting to shoot his required 50 rounds cut his hand on one of the gun slides, and blood started dripping down his hand.
My heart racing, and sweat trickling into my eyes, I stood in a line behind a blue barrel and tried to focus when it came time for me to take the test. If I end up earning my license, I can only hope the shots fired there will be the last ones I ever shoot under that kind of pressure - or worse.
jsanders@statesman.com; 445-3630
My first encounter with a gun was when I was 6 years old. It was December 1984, and as my mother and I walked across a bridge from Harlem to the Bronx in New York City, two men came up behind us intending to take the faux mink coat she was wearing, which looked unfortunately real under the dull orange streetlights. One of them put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if she didn't turn over the coat. I can still remember the quarters clanging on the concrete beneath our feet as they snatched the coat, let me go and took off into the night.
That sense of vulnerability and fear followed me into adulthood, when I found myself, as an African American single woman, working as a reporter in Beaumont in 2001.
In addition to the pressures of learning how to be a reporter, learning Texas and being far from home, I was warned in the newsroom about active clusters of Ku Klux Klan activity. It had only been a few years since James Byrd Jr., a black man, had been beaten by white men and dragged to his death in nearby Jasper.
It wasn't until the recent debates over concealed handgun licenses on campuses and my own curiosity about learning how to shoot that I decided it was time to apply for my own license. After a trip to Ladies' Day at Red's Indoor Range in Pflugerville, I almost reconsidered. Then a LivingSocial coupon for a Gunfighter's Clinic course showed up in my inbox, and I decided to go for it.
It surprised me to discover that I was part of a larger trend in Texas. Applications for concealed carry permits began rising in the state before the 2008 elections, an increase some attributed to concerns that anti-gun politicians would be voted in . Of the total number of licenses granted, women made up 21.9 percent in 2010, up from 17.7 percent in 2001, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. For reasons that are unclear, black women are the fastest-growing group of women being issued licenses for concealed handguns in the state.
Academics, experts and gun safety instructors have disagreed for decades about how popular guns are with women. Part of the ongoing dispute reflects what The Atlantic wisely noted in its September issue as an ongoing and unresolved battle in American culture between gun control and gun rights activists. Nationwide, the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that in 2009, the number of women buying guns for personal defense was up 83 percent.
University of Richmond professor Laura Browder, author of "Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America" says that the visibility of female hunters such as Sarah Palin in popular culture has lifted some of the stigma of gun ownership for most women - whether they use those guns for personal defense or for hunting. "Palin has brought women's gun ownership back into the public sphere in a way that it hasn't been," Browder said.
But since the 1980s, professors across the country have argued that the media and gun industry have enlarged the scenario of unmarried women fearing for their safety in urban environments earning their licenses for protection against violent crime. Browder said in her 2006 book that women earning licenses "as a defense against anonymous violence" was in part because the gun industry uses the fear of violence to scare women into buying guns.
But my fear is grounded not just in my personal history, but in a collective one.
Adam Winkler, author of the forthcoming book, "Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right to Bear Arms in America," traced the birth of the modern gun rights movement to the Black Panthers in the September issue of The Atlantic. In it was a fact of history that I'd never heard: "Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied," Winkler wrote. "But from then on, armed supporters guarded his home."
Closer to my demographic was the historian Danielle McGuire's book, "At the Dark End of the Street," which fills out commonly told stories about Rosa Parks and other women of the civil rights movement who were subjected not just to racial intimidation but also sexual violence. Among the most jarring stories of black women attacked in the South, sometimes by police officers, was the story of Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old mother and sharecropper who in 1944, as she walked home after attending church at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Ala., was snatched from the street by seven white men armed with knives and shotguns. They raped her and left her for dead. It was Rosa Parks, the president of the local NAACP branch office, who was sent to investigate Taylor's case.
Sure, both the robbery from my childhood and the rape of Taylor were decades ago. But as a homeowner who lives in the South and aspires to travel unfettered to places where I might be viewed more as a target than a benevolent visitor, earning a concealed handgun license seemed the best way to quell my personal fear.
And in order to get that license, I needed to spend at least 10 hours with Mathew Williams, an instructor with Austin-based Gunfighter's Clinic, and pass a state background check.
Part of Williams' class is a 200-slide presentation explaining Texas gun-ownership laws. There were four other women in the class. Among them was a thin blond woman named Chris, who asked me not to use her last name. She said she came to the class with her husband, Bruce, and their adult daughter mainly out of curiosity, after Bruce's pastor took the Boston native out hunting and got him thinking about applying for his concealed handgun license.
Chris and her daughter decided to join Bruce for the class.
"I'm not a very big woman myself," Chris said. "And so, if something happens to Bruce, I want to be able to protect my home. And because I'm not very big, a man could do whatever he wanted with me. A gun seems like it would level the playing field."
Williams, who seemed to regard less lethal methods of self-defense with a lot of skepticism, said that he had a 30 percent increase in the number of women showing up in his classes, which meet the state's public safety requirements for concealed handgun licensing. Generally, the courses cost upward of $100, and the application for the concealed handgun course is about $140, not including fingerprinting fees and the cost of passport photos. Williams' class, which is combined with a legal response program that includes information about what to do if you have to shoot someone, costs about $400, though it was $198 with the coupon.
Williams, a gunsmith, insomniac and father of two teaches the 10-hour training course four times a week, he said.
"Chivalry is dead," he said. "Male criminals think nothing nowadays of shooting a woman." At home, his two daughters are well-versed in marksmanship - the 7-year-old has a rifle and a handgun and his 5-year-old will soon have her own rifle, he said. It was the first time I had heard anyone mention children owning guns, but he says in the class that the best way to prevent children's injury with firearms is to educate them about how to use them. (And to keep them in locked cases.)
There are other things to consider. The personal injury rates for firearms in homicide and suicide in this country are higher than they are in any other industrialized nation. And violent crimes in America dropped significantly in 2010, to what appears to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years.
While Chris and I, her daughter and Bruce braved the 106-degree heat with our other classmates in Hays County, a man starting to shoot his required 50 rounds cut his hand on one of the gun slides, and blood started dripping down his hand.
My heart racing, and sweat trickling into my eyes, I stood in a line behind a blue barrel and tried to focus when it came time for me to take the test. If I end up earning my license, I can only hope the shots fired there will be the last ones I ever shoot under that kind of pressure - or worse.
jsanders@statesman.com; 445-3630
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
If elected president, Rick Perry could still jog with his gun
When Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry goes for a jog in Texas, the governor doesn't just throw on a pair of gym shorts and tennis shoes before dashing out the door. He also packs a concealed .380 Ruger loaded with deadly hollow-point bullets, fully equipped with a laser-sight for precise killing. (What, you don't?)
He says he keeps it on him in case of an attack from wild animals. Last year, the Texas governor sent a coyote to canine heaven with a single shot while he was exercising in Austin, claiming it had threatened his dog.
But if he were elected president, could Perry hypothetically continue to pack heat on his morning run? You're damn right he could.
The Ticket asked several constitutional scholars and presidential experts if a sitting president would be allowed to carry a gun if he wanted to, even if it meant breaking local law. Since the White House is located in Washington, D.C.--a city that bans carrying firearms--the answer isn't perfectly simple. As presidential scholar Kenneth R. Mayer of the University of Wisconsin put it, the legal questions would get "big, fat, and hairy in a hurry."
The short answer is that if the president really wanted to run around Lafayette Park with a revolver strapped to his leg, the legal barriers would be easily surmountable.
In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a decades-old D.C, law that banned gun ownership in the District of Columbia, but it is still illegal to carry a gun around the city. That second part doesn't sit well with Perry, who considers owning a gun a "fundamental right" enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
"We Texans like our guns," Perry writes in his book, Fed Up!. "We don't like meddlesome statists who want to infringe on our right to keep and bear them."
Like it or not, the president would be breaking local law by carrying his gun in the city, but there are several ways he could get around it if he wanted to.
First, the president could easily sign an executive order that makes it legal for him to carry a weapon. Executive Orders are considered as good as law, so there would be little that could stop him, said Adam Winkler, UCLA law professor and author of the new book Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America.
"No man is above the law, not even the president. If applicable law bars him from carrying a gun, then he must obey," Winkler told The Ticket. "Of course, the president is powerful. He could probably just sign an executive order authorizing himself to carry guns wherever he likes."
If, however, the president didn't want to pursue his right to carry through an executive order, he could also take the argument to the federal courts.
The president would have to "persuade the court that carrying the gun was part of his official duties," said Eric M. Freedman, professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University. That wouldn't necessarily be easy, given that the president is already surrounded by a heavily armed team of Secret Service personnel, but then again, White House lawyers are notorious for legal arguments to justify presidential power. (Amiright John Yoo?)
The president could also request to be deputized in the District, which would allow him to carry a firearm via the same channels that members of law enforcement in the District use.
The gun-toting president could, of course, avoid all these sticky legal problems if he kept his outdoor exercise regimen out of DC. There are plenty of trails, foothills and paths a short drive away in Virginia, a state with loose gun laws, where the president could run freely with the wind blowing through his holsters.
The Secret Service, however, could make a very serious argument that the president shouldn't be carrying a weapon for his own protection. Remember, a spirited debate broke out in the days leading up to President Obama's inauguration over whether he would be forced to surrender his Blackberry for security concerns. (In the end, Obama got to keep his Blackberry, but under certain conditions.) If a Blackberry's almost off limits, you can imagine how the Secret Service might react if the president wanted to pack a glock. When contacted for this article, a spokesman for the Secret Service declined to speak on the record.
Of course, we won't really know how this would all come out until a president actually tries to pack heat on Washington's mean streets. Then again, we might not even get that far. When asked this week on the campaign trail if he was packing, Perry told Politico's Ben Smith, "I never comment on whether I'm carrying a handgun or not. That's why it's called concealed."
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/elected-president-rick-perry-could-still-jog-gun-190824495.html
And really, who would ever check?
County Commission: new state gun law could create 'Wild West' Palm Beach
By John Kennedy and Jennifer Sorentrue Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:49 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2011
Palm Beach County commissioners may challenge a new state law that is forcing them to repeal at least seven local rules regulating guns and ammunition.
The commission directed County Attorney Denise Neiman to research whether the county can mount a legal challenge to the law, enacted this spring, which prevents local governments from regulating firearms and ammunition.
It takes effect Oct. 1. After that, local elected officials or agency heads could face civil fines of as much as $5,000 for trying to enforce ordinances they know are in violation of the state law. Gov. Rick Scott could also remove elected and appointed officials who violate the rules.
"We are sworn in to uphold the health, safety and welfare," Commissioner Burt Aaronson said. "And this certainly does not allow us to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people we serve."
County attorneys have spent weeks combing through the county's ordinances and laws looking for regulations that restrict firearms.
Commissioners have already overturned a provision that banned guns in county parks.
On Tuesday the commission took the final step to repeal a county rule that prevented people from bringing guns into child-care centers. Instead, gun owners must now keep their firearms in a locked box to bring them into the centers, Chief Assistant County Attorney Jim Mize said.
The commission also took preliminary steps to repeal several other gun regulations, including a provision that blocked people from discharging a firearm east of 20-Mile Bend.
Commissioners said the unanimous decisions were made "under duress."
"It is the Wild West here in Palm Beach County," Aaronson said. "West Palm Beach may become known as Wild West Palm Beach."
The National Rifle Association has disputed safety concerns, saying lifting local bans will allow people with state-issued concealed weapon permits to carry firearms into places where they should have been allowed all along.
Carrying firearms into schools or shooting in public places, which could include parks and other crowded areas, would still be banned under state law.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Tuesday the repeal of local laws would not affect residents' safety.
"There is still a state statute," Bradshaw said. "What the public has got to understand is that you can't just go firing your gun off."
Palm Beach County leaders have spent years pushing for stronger gun regulations.
In 1999, the county signed off on a rule that required people buying firearms at gun shows or flea markets to undergo the same criminal background checks as those purchasing guns from licensed dealers.
The next year, county commissioners signed off on a local law requiring gun owners to lock their weapons while children were nearby or face a $500 fine. Gun owners opposed the ordinance and protested loudly at the meeting where the Palm Beach County Commission passed the law.
And in January, Aaronson called for a statewide ban on the sale of high-capacity gun magazines like the one used to wound U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and kill six others.
The new state law was among three measures pushed by the politically powerful NRA that were approved this year by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Rick Scott.
One measure restricts doctors from asking patients about gun ownership and another decriminalizes the accidental showing of a concealed weapon. Doctors' organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sued Scott this summer over the gun ownership law.
But supporters of the law prohibiting local governments from passing stricter gun laws than the state say it was designed merely to force cities and counties to comply with a 1987 law that placed the right to impose gun regulations with the Legislature.
"There's been a steady creep, an erosion of gun rights by cities and counties," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, who sponsored the law (HB 45) approved this spring, on a mostly party-line vote with Democrats opposed.
"All we're trying to do is enforce the existing laws," Gaetz added.
Richard Radcliffe, executive director of the Palm Beach County League of Cities, said that the county's 38 municipalities are also searching their laws for gun restrictions. The task is challenging because gun rules are often buried in other regulations, such as those dictating appropriate noise levels in an area.
It is unclear how many cities and towns will have to repeal local rules as a result of the new state law, Radcliffe said. "Everybody is in the process of going through all of their code books," he said.
Cragin Mosteller, a spokeswoman for the Florida Association of Counties, said that many county officials are unhappy with the Legislature's action. But none has stepped forward to challenge the measure. "I think we've always felt the government closest to the people is the one that governs best," Mosteller said.
Staff researcher Niels Heimeriks contributed to this story.
Palm Beach County commissioners may challenge a new state law that is forcing them to repeal at least seven local rules regulating guns and ammunition.
The commission directed County Attorney Denise Neiman to research whether the county can mount a legal challenge to the law, enacted this spring, which prevents local governments from regulating firearms and ammunition.
It takes effect Oct. 1. After that, local elected officials or agency heads could face civil fines of as much as $5,000 for trying to enforce ordinances they know are in violation of the state law. Gov. Rick Scott could also remove elected and appointed officials who violate the rules.
"We are sworn in to uphold the health, safety and welfare," Commissioner Burt Aaronson said. "And this certainly does not allow us to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people we serve."
County attorneys have spent weeks combing through the county's ordinances and laws looking for regulations that restrict firearms.
Commissioners have already overturned a provision that banned guns in county parks.
On Tuesday the commission took the final step to repeal a county rule that prevented people from bringing guns into child-care centers. Instead, gun owners must now keep their firearms in a locked box to bring them into the centers, Chief Assistant County Attorney Jim Mize said.
The commission also took preliminary steps to repeal several other gun regulations, including a provision that blocked people from discharging a firearm east of 20-Mile Bend.
Commissioners said the unanimous decisions were made "under duress."
"It is the Wild West here in Palm Beach County," Aaronson said. "West Palm Beach may become known as Wild West Palm Beach."
The National Rifle Association has disputed safety concerns, saying lifting local bans will allow people with state-issued concealed weapon permits to carry firearms into places where they should have been allowed all along.
Carrying firearms into schools or shooting in public places, which could include parks and other crowded areas, would still be banned under state law.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Tuesday the repeal of local laws would not affect residents' safety.
"There is still a state statute," Bradshaw said. "What the public has got to understand is that you can't just go firing your gun off."
Palm Beach County leaders have spent years pushing for stronger gun regulations.
In 1999, the county signed off on a rule that required people buying firearms at gun shows or flea markets to undergo the same criminal background checks as those purchasing guns from licensed dealers.
The next year, county commissioners signed off on a local law requiring gun owners to lock their weapons while children were nearby or face a $500 fine. Gun owners opposed the ordinance and protested loudly at the meeting where the Palm Beach County Commission passed the law.
And in January, Aaronson called for a statewide ban on the sale of high-capacity gun magazines like the one used to wound U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and kill six others.
The new state law was among three measures pushed by the politically powerful NRA that were approved this year by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Rick Scott.
One measure restricts doctors from asking patients about gun ownership and another decriminalizes the accidental showing of a concealed weapon. Doctors' organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sued Scott this summer over the gun ownership law.
But supporters of the law prohibiting local governments from passing stricter gun laws than the state say it was designed merely to force cities and counties to comply with a 1987 law that placed the right to impose gun regulations with the Legislature.
"There's been a steady creep, an erosion of gun rights by cities and counties," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, who sponsored the law (HB 45) approved this spring, on a mostly party-line vote with Democrats opposed.
"All we're trying to do is enforce the existing laws," Gaetz added.
Richard Radcliffe, executive director of the Palm Beach County League of Cities, said that the county's 38 municipalities are also searching their laws for gun restrictions. The task is challenging because gun rules are often buried in other regulations, such as those dictating appropriate noise levels in an area.
It is unclear how many cities and towns will have to repeal local rules as a result of the new state law, Radcliffe said. "Everybody is in the process of going through all of their code books," he said.
Cragin Mosteller, a spokeswoman for the Florida Association of Counties, said that many county officials are unhappy with the Legislature's action. But none has stepped forward to challenge the measure. "I think we've always felt the government closest to the people is the one that governs best," Mosteller said.
Staff researcher Niels Heimeriks contributed to this story.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Florida cities, counties must take local gun laws off books
New state law bans local gun regulations
By Martin E. Comas, ORLANDO SENTINEL8:02 PM EDT, August 13, 2011
Orange County employees have started removing "no firearms" signs at county parks, and soon they'll probably black out the same words on brochures. In Groveland, leaders recently erased from the books an ordinance that banned firing a gun into the air.
Across Florida, similar scenes are being played out as cities and counties scour their ordinances to get rid of gun regulations by Oct. 1. That's when a tough new state law, backed by the National Rifle Association, will forbid city and county governments from enacting or enforcing local gun-control regulations.
Local officials face individual $5,000 fines and even removal from office by the governor if they try to adopt or enforce local gun laws.
"The sanctions are rather draconian," said Robert Guthrie, Orange's senior assistant county attorney. "We're doing a complete inventory of which rules and regulations we need to repeal."
Since 1987, Florida has had a law giving the state the exclusive right to regulate firearms. But there were no penalties for local governments that took regulation a step further. The newly amended law adds "teeth," said Rebecca O'Hara, legislative director for the Florida League of Cities.
Supporters of the law, signed in June by Gov. Rick Scott, contend that it was needed to have consistent firearm regulations across Florida. By doing away with local restrictions, it allows people with state-issued concealed-weapons permits to carry firearms in places where they should have been allowed all along, according to the NRA. That includes, for example, Orange County parks, which have had a no-guns policy.
"The Constitution protects the right to keep and bear arms," said Marion Hammer, lobbyist for the NRA. "Local governments are not allowed to regulate the Bill of Rights."
But Dennis Henigan, interim president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group in Washington, lambasted the law, calling it "shameful."
"The gun lobby is determined to force guns into every corner of our society," Henigan said. "That does not make us safer."
Nevertheless, local governments from Miami to Pensacola are purging their ordinances of "gun" references.
In Boca Raton, the "no guns allowed" sign has come down at City Hall.
In Lake County, commissioners recently deleted a provision in an ordinance that would have banned firearms on public lands, including its parks.
In Orange, Matt Suedmeyer, the county's parks-and-recreation manager, said he has had several meetings with county attorneys to discuss the new law, and "it does appear that we have to remove" any signs referring to guns. To save money, county employees probably will use markers to block out wording about guns in brochures.
"There is a little concern" about public safety, Suedmeyer said. "The bad guys that carry guns would bring them into the parks regardless."
State law already makes it illegal to fire into buildings, cars, across streets and in public places, except for self-defense. Though concealed-weapons-permit holders will be allowed to bring guns into most government buildings, state law doesn't allow firearms in meetings of elected officials.
But a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work for gun regulations, Palm Beach County Commissioner Shelley Vana said.
Urban communities with more people living closer together should be able to have stricter gun rules than rural communities with more wide-open spaces, Vana said.
"It's a shame that there are people in Florida who love their guns more than children," Vana said. "Special interests have won out."
But Hammer, of the NRA, said local "gun haters" flouting the 1987 law for years prompted the addition of personal penalties for public officials who try to impose local rules.
Differing gun regulations across the state "made criminals out of law-abiding people who had no way of knowing what these local regulations were," she said.
Staff writer Andy Reid contributed to this report. mcomas@tribune.com or 352-742-5927.
Copyright © 2011, Orlando Sentinel
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