RSS feedRick Scott Promises to Sign Open Carry Bill for Florida
Opponent Alex Sink Campaign Treats Open Carry Organizers like DMV Customers.
Florida Open Carry to Hold “Open Carry Fish-Ins” on Nov. 6th in Jacksonville, Tampa, Daytona, St. Augustine, and Ft. Myers.
Rick Scott Promises to Sign Open Carry Bill for Florida
OpenCarry.org
Sacramento, California --(Ammoland.com)- Florida is one of only 7 states banning the open carry of properly holstered handguns, but apparently that doesn’t bother Florida’s Democratic candidate for Governor, Alex Sink, or her campaign managers.
Over the last two weeks Sink’s campaign staffers have stiff-armed repeated requests from both OpenCarry.org and Florida Open Carry for her position on restoring open carry rights in Florida.
The question put to them was pretty straight forward:
“If a future legislature passed a bill restoring open carry rights in Florida, would a Governor Sink be inclined to sign it?”
Sink’s staffer “Jasmine” told Florida Open Carry’s Sean Caranna that the issue would need further “staffing and research” and that Jasmine did not know which department was handling the request but regardless, “you will just have to wait for them to get back to you.”
“It was like talking to the DMV,” said Caranna, noting that “this late in the.” campaign you’d think the Sink people would be more on the ball regarding major public policy questions like gun rights.”
But it didn’t take long for Republican Rick Scott to provide a position on open carry. Within hours of OpenCarry.org’s inquiry last week, the Scott campaign provided this remarkably straightforward statement from Mr. Scott on the open carry issue:
“As a member of the NRA and a hunter, I’m a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and I will protect our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Florida is one of only seven states with wide prohibition on carrying an unconcealed firearm. Repealing the ban on unconcealed or Open Carry will eliminate practical and constitutional problems in Florida.”
According OpenCarry.org’s John Pierce, the choice before Florida gun owners on November 2d “is very stark. Voters must choose between a candidate with her head in the sand on gun rights, or Rick Scott who is clearly NOT in the closet when it comes to gun rights.”
Meanwhile, no matter who wins the governor’s race, open carry organizers in Florida are driving on with both;
- an online petition to restore Florida open carry rights at http://open-carry.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=63
- open carry “fish-in” events on Nov. 6th in Jacksonville, Tampa, Daytona, St. Augustine, and Ft. Myers; see http://tiny.cc/id4zn.
NOTE 1: Currently Floridians who want to open carry must be fishing or en-route to/from fishing; no gun carry permit required.
NOTE 2: Florida Open Carry’s Sean Caranna will speak at the Tea Party sponsored “Florida State Wide Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Rally” (on Saturday, October 23, 2010 at Orlando City Hall from noon till 2:00 p.m) about the effort to pass an Arizona-style open carry law to allow the people of the state of Florida to openly carry handguns without any permit. See more at http://cflrepublicans.blogspot.com/2010/10/orlando-tea-party-and-south-florida-tea.html.
Carry on!About:
OpenCarry.org was founded in 2004 by Virginia gun-rights activists John Pierce and Mike Stollenwerk and has served to ignite the “Open Carry Movement” that is sweeping the country. In addition to being an invaluable legal resource for gun owners, the site has quickly grown to be a social networking portal for thousands of American gun owners. Visit: www.OpenCarry.org
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open carry should be allowed but only to people with permit
[...] (Orlando and Tampa's worst parts) and would like to open carry at these times. I found this Rick Scott Promises to Sign Open Carry Bill for Florida Did you find this post helpful? [...]
i also agree that open carry should only allowed to people with permits. There has to be some restrictions preventing those with felonies on record to carry as the statute now stipulates
Bear (verb): To hold; carry; bring.
To prohibit open carry or even to require a permit to do so is blatantly and clearly unconstitutional. Each individual is responsible for his/her own safety, not the government.
The true intent and meaning of the 2nd Amendment has NOTHING to do with receiving a “permit” from gov – thats slave mentality.
“Most men do not desire liberty; most only wish for a just master.”
Sallust (86-34BC)
‘THE UNLIMITED POWER OF THE SWORD’
A couple of loyal readers asked me, in response to my recent evisceration of the discredited “militia clause” argument, “But Vin, do you think the Founders would have written the Second Amendment that way if they’d known we’d have Uzis”?
Leaving aside the fact that it takes extraordinary dedication and commitment (and loot) for a “civilian” of average means to legally acquire a fully automatic Israeli machine pistol in America today (since, in blatant violation of the Constitution, the federal government bans both their import and their domestic manufacture for “civilian” use), the answer is, “Yes.”
The Founders had every opportunity to add “except for bombs, mortars, artillery, and other devices that can kill more than one person at a time” — all of which were well known by 1787. They did not. Quite to the contrary, noted federalist and friend of Madison Tench Coxe wrote in defense of the proposed Constitution, in the Pennsylvania Gazette of Feb. 20, 1788: “Their swords, and every other terrible instrument of the soldier, are the birth right of an American. … The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
Note “unlimited.” Note “every terrible instrument.”
Under the form of government which we’re told Americans still enjoy, the government can exercise only those powers which are delegated to it by the people. You cannot delegate a right or power which you do not already possess. Therefore, if members of the United States Army have legitimate authority to “keep and bear” Uzis and nuclear weapons, they can only have gotten that right from the individual Americans who delegated it to them.
It doesn’t matter whether you “think this is a good idea.” If you want to contend we now have a form of government in which our rulers start with all rights and powers, and allow to the peasantry only those lesser included liberties as they see fit, say so out loud now, please. And tell me when the original Constitution was voided, and by what legal process.
Nor do we usually or necessarily abdicate a right when we delegate it: We delegate to police the duty to chase down fleeing felons, but each citizen retains the right to go ahead and do this, himself, if circumstances dictate. Similarly, the Second and 14th amendments guarantee that we have not given up our private, individual right to keep and bear howitzers and really big machine guns, just because we have also delegated this right to the Army.
Of particular interest is the fact that several of this week’s questioners work in the newspaper business. How would they respond, I wonder, to the proposition that the First Amendment protects only the freedom to use old-fashioned hand presses — that the Founders can’t possibly have meant to authorize unrestricted use of today’s far more dangerous, high-speed electrical presses, with their ability to spread lies and seditious, anti-government propaganda hundreds of times faster than Ben Franklin or James Madison could ever have imagined?
###
Speaking of my (necessarily brief) summary of the inquiries which have gutted the tired old “militia clause” arguments, noted Alabama constitutional attorney Larry Becraft writes in:
“Vin, You did not mention: http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm — Larry”
Frankly, I’m cautious about using Department of Justice filings, since they’re inherently political and could easily shift under some future Hillaryesque administration. Nonetheless, Larry does offer up an official DOJ memorandum of opinion, dated Aug. 24, 2004, which finds:
“The Second Amendment secures a right of individuals generally, not a right of States or a right restricted to persons serving in militias. … As developed in the analysis below, we conclude that the Second Amendment secures a personal right of individuals, not a collective right that may only be invoked by a State or a quasi-collective right restricted to those persons who serve in organized militia units. …
“The Amendment’s prefatory clause, considered under proper rules of interpretation, could not negate the individual right recognized in the clear language of the operative clause. In any event, the prefatory clause — particularly its reference to the ‘Militia,’ which was understood at the Founding to encompass all able-bodied male citizens, who were required to be enrolled for service — is fully consistent with an individual-right reading of the operative language. …”
###
And speaking of lies and the credibility of the press, what about those Associated Press and CNN stories that keep echoing (often without attribution) the Democratic/organized labor talking point that the GOP Senate wants to “slash $39 million” (or whatever today’s number is) from federal social programs?
Would that it were so. One more time, guys: If the Republicans seek to “grow” a federal program at only 5 percent next year, instead of 5.5 percent, that’s not even a “cut,” let alone a “slash.” If you were hoping for a dollar-an-hour raise, and your boss only gave you a 90-cent-an-hour raise, and you proceeded to go home and tell your spouse “My paycheck got slashed,” you would be … what?
Lying.
Yet people are supposed to trust their daily newspapers — we just report the straight facts, leaving the readers to make their own judgments.
—————————————————–
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the
daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of the books
Send in the Waco Killers, The Ballad of Carl Drega, and
The Black Arrow. For information call 702-656-3285, or visit
http://www.TheLibertarian.us or http://www.LibertyBookShop.us.
Last week they read the declaration of independence, maybe we can get them to understand the part of their oath about protect and defend the constitution, tehy are supposed to take that before being admitted to congress and the house.