The gun lobby in the USA

April 5, 2012. The New York Times

The Law of the Gun in Florida

Florida leads the pack in passing bills written by the gun lobby that block any sensible attempt to control the purchase and use of firearms. The dangerous folly of these laws was on display in the Trayvon Martin shooting, and will again be on display when Republicans gather for their presidential convention in Tampa this August.

The City Council is sensibly preparing tight security precautions for the downtown area by temporarily banning clubs, hatchets, switchblades, pepper spray, slingshots, chains, shovels and all manner of guns that shoot water, paint or air.

But not handguns that shoot actual bullets. In other words, someone outside the convention hall will be entitled to pack a handgun, but not a squirt gun.

This down-the-rabbit-hole situation is the result of a law passed last year by state legislators at the behest of the gun lobby. It ended longstanding local gun controls, prohibiting city governments from enacting any ordinances on the sale, possession or use of firearms.

Tampa officials wanted to ban handguns outside the convention hall (the Secret Service has undisputed power to ban weapons inside the hall) but came up against the state law, which imposes $100,000 fines on local governments that try to meet such obvious public-safety needs. This lethal parody of gun control should be repealed, like the notorious Stand Your Ground law. But voters cannot expect common sense from the Republican-controlled Legislature, which is on a leash held by the gun lobby.

“You may want to call Governor (Rick) Scott and the Legislature on that,” Jim Shimberg Jr., Tampa’s city attorney, told The Tampa Bay Times when asked what the city can do to reduce the danger of handgun incidents near the convention. Talk of a temporary easing of the law handcuffing localities, insubstantial thus far, underlines the outrageous overreach by the Legislature.

Presidential conventions present huge security problems in modern America. The Secret Service sets up tight perimeters with fences and metal detectors for people entering the hall. It is counting on backup help from Tampa officials who plan to ban certain potential weapons citywide, and additional ones in a designated “clean zone” around the convention and in a more contained protest area expected to draw thousands of demonstrators.

The protest area would have the tightest ban, including even ladders and metal-tipped umbrellas. But not handguns carried by someone with a concealed weapon permit — a fast-growing area of gun ownership.

Hypothetical scenarios of a gun-wielding protester “standing his ground” and drawing against an antagonist are being discussed in local media. These seem less farfetched in the context of the Trayvon Martin shooting and the Tea Party political protests of two years ago where demonstrators proudly sported holstered weaponry.

Political leaders mindful of public safety should be able to solve Tampa’s gun control problem. But there’s scant few of them in the statehouse. The scene developing in Tampa is a national embarrassment that spotlights how timorous American politicians are before the gun lobby.