A Florida state senator has recently introduced a bill that seeks to end the “plague” of “gun violence” by requiring anyone who wants to buy ammunition to first take an anger management course. There’s an interview with Florida State Sen. Audrey Gibson above [about two minutes in]. Meanwhile, Fox News has the details . . .
The bill filed Saturday by state Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, would require a three-day waiting period for the sale of any firearm and the sale of ammunition to anyone who has not completed anger management courses. The proposal would require ammo buyers to take the anger management courses every 10 years.
“This is not about guns,” Gibson said. “This is about ammunition and not only for the safety of the general community, but also for the safety of law enforcement.”
As a member of the millions of gun owners who have never fired a shot in anger or committed a crime, I find this highly offensive. The requirement for anger management classes makes the assumption that all gun owners are angry, and that the only reason people buy guns is to settle grudges.
I’d think that someone with her background would be overly sensitive to laws that assume someone’s behavior based on one of their traits, like the assumption that all black people are too dumb to vote. What she has said by introducing this law is that all gun owners are too angry to own ammunition.
“It’s about getting people to think, really, about how much ammunition they need,” Gibson said. “It’s a step, I think, in a safer direction. It’s about getting people to think before they buy.”
I need as much ammunition as I want, buddy. What does it matter how much ammunition I have on hand? Do I go around asking how many baseball bats you have in your house? Or questioning how many death machines (I mean cars) are in your garage? Do you also want to limit the number of newspapers someone can read?
Gun and ammunition ownership has already been established as an individual, basic human right. A right that is protected by the Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court. And this Florida legislator wants to introduce an onerous and pointless requirement to keep people from practicing with their legally owned firearm. It fails the “strict scrutiny” test by any account, and would be laughed out of court if introduced.
Gibson insisted the bill is not “accusatory” toward gun and ammunition owners, but rather an effort to improve the safety of her community.
I’m going to call bullshit on that statement. A bill (such as this one) can be BOTH accusatory towards gun owners AND intended to improve security, the two are not mutually exclusive. And the inability for Audrey Gibson to realize exactly how offensive her bill is to gun owners shows exactly how little she thinks of those who own guns. Untermensch, perhaps.
This is another indication of the ongoing vilification of gun owners by gun control advocates. They’re constantly and repeatedly trying to paint gun owners as rednecks and yokels who are too dumb and too irrational to be trusted with firearms, without actually looking at any evidence on the matter. They’re legislating based on personal biases and stereotypes.
Gun owners are becoming the new favored and politically correct “minority” to vilify, now that racial issues have more or less died out in the United States. Its just sad that legislators like Audrey Gibson have such a short memory, since it wasn’t too long ago that her parents were being persecuted in the exact same way.
Rather than requiring gun owners to take anger management courses, I think we should require our legislators to take a course on history and the constitution before they propose legislation.