“Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) defied his longtime allies at the National Rifle Association on Friday to sign into law a new set of gun regulations, more than three weeks after a school shooting claimed 17 lives in his state,” washingtonpost.com reports. “’I am going to do what I think are common-sense solutions,’ Scott said after the signing. ‘I think this is the beginning. There is now going to be a real conversation about how we make our schools safe.'” Here’s what’s heading down the pike for “Gunshine State” residents . . .
The new Florida law imposes a three-day waiting period for most purchases of long guns, raises the minimum age for buying those weapons to 21 and bans the possession of bump stocks, devices that can make semiautomatic weapons fire like fully automatic firearms. It does not address the demand of many Stoneman Douglas students for a ban on assault weapons.
The bill does make it easier for law enforcement and judges to remove guns from people considered a danger to themselves or others, and it establishes a program to arm some school personnel, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending on school security and mental health treatment.
Before signing the bill, the governor restated his opposition to portions of it, including the waiting period and any effort to arm teachers.
The Gov’s OK with suspending due process and saves his harsh words for the only part of the bill that [partially] restores gun rights to some teachers? And this guy’s a Republican?
Yup a Republican running against a Democrat for a Senate seat. A Democratic Senate incumbent named Bill Nelson, a man who knows a slippery slope when he sees one.
“This is a first step, and if we really want to do something to combat gun violence, like what we saw in Parkland, we must require universal background checks on the purchase of a gun and get these assault rifles off our streets,” Nelson said in a statement after the bill became law.
Meanwhile, log this one under diary of a turncoat:
Until the Parkland shooting, Scott was championed by the NRA as a defender of gun rights. He supported state laws that prohibited local governments from regulating firearms, barred doctors from asking their patients about gun ownership and allowed children to play with simulated guns in school.
As recently as 2017, Scott promoted himself as a gun rights purist and boasted of Florida as a haven for gun owners. “We love tourists, new residents and the Second Amendment,” he said at the NRA annual meeting in Atlanta in April. “What does ‘shall not infringe on the people’s right to bear arms’ mean? It means ‘shall not infringe.’ It’s not really very complicated.”
It really isn’t, as Scott will learn come election time.