NRA & friends totally oblivious to Ariz. tragedy
BY FRED GRIMM
Two days after the horror in Tucson, the Florida Legislature reacted.
With most Americans still numbed by a crazed shooting spree that left six dead and 13 wounded, including an Arizona congresswoman, state Rep. Joe Negron offered up Florida's own special answer to gun violence.
The representative from Stuart filed House Bill 45, which would prohibit any city or county from enacting ordinances that might impose gun or ammo restrictions beyond what's proscribed in Florida's famously permissive state laws. Negron's bill, of course, was aimed at South Florida, where city and county commissioners have dabbled in such blasphemies as trigger guards and waiting periods.
GOP FOR BIG GOVERNMENT?
His bill seemed a curious departure from a Republican philosophy that opposes federal meddling in state business. Yet Negron would make any local government official who bucks his particular dictates a felon, to be tossed from office and fined up to $5 million.
His timing struck folks who cling to the notion of a civil society as utterly callous, though Negron told the Sun Sentinel that his bill, filed Monday, had nothing to do with Tucson. ``It's something I've been working on with the NRA and gun owners and it's been in bill-drafting for over a month.''
If he sounded oblivious to the nation's shock and sorrow, it's only because the NRA has instructed Florida lawmakers that they must adhere to the holy tenet that guns have no relationship to gun violence. The NRA's army of political minions pretended not to notice that the 33-round clip jammed into Jared Loughner's 9mm Glock semi-automatic had been illegal until the NRA ordered Congress to revoke the ban in 2004.
GUNS IN PLAYGROUNDS
The need for a tough law to keep commie socialist gun-grabbing South Floridians in line became obvious the very day after Negron filed his bill. The Palm Beach County Commission, bothered by the gun killings in Arizona, postponed Tuesday's scheduled vote to revoke an old ordinance that banned firearms on the 8,000 acres of playgrounds, nature trails, water parks, beaches, bike trails and sports fields within the county park system. Because, of course, there's nothing quite so reassuring as a sporting event attended by fervent spectators armed with Glocks.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/15/2018442/nra-friends-totally-oblivious.html