I bet this ad hurt some when you are trying desperately to impose a long and obnoxious waiting period.

Accompanying note “Cries Foul on Gun Control. House Majority Leader Rep. Ron Silver, (D)-N. Miami Beach, holds up a newspaper ad on the House floor Wednesday, claiming it was riddled with untruths regarding his sponsored gun legislation and its cooling off purchase period. However, Silver supported the floor amendment’s shorter cooling off period, saying was at least a start in the right direction.”

I know that we complain about the hardships we face battling gun control, but back then was even worse: No Internet to mobilize and congregate, no concerted effort between all parties interested in Gun Rights, a Mainstream media that hated the idea of Citizens armed and independent with no alternative methods for people to acquire alternative information.

In a sense, we are standing on the shoulders of Atlas-es who did what nobody back then thought possible. And Marion Hammer was there too, she was derided and thought useless: boy were they wrong! Sis one frigging tough cookie and we owe her so much and I am not just saying Florida.

“For days Friedman (Rep. Michael Friedman, D-Miami Beach) has debated against the House’s handgun bill but the measure passed 86-27. Naturally Friedman voted on the losing side.”

I have been looking at some pictures of the Legislature proceedings at that time and it looks like it had to be a nasty battle. I guess this pic shows that somehow.  I think the particular bill refers was the reduction from a 7 day waiting period to a 3 day.

Click to enlarge

SB 296  is apparently stalled. As I posted before, it allows for people even without a Concealed Weapons Permit to carry a gun during an evacuation during a State Of Emergency.

Again, fits are being thrown like Mardi gars necklaces in New Orleans and sulfuric editorial are being written all across the Gunshine State.  Will the bill be killed? No idea. maybe, maybe not. Although is good to throw a bone to the opposition sometimes, it also encourages them to come back for more and then you have to roll the newspaper.

At any rate, if this bill gets stuck, it really does not matter much if the people inside the car are smart and follow the law as it stand now:

POSSESSION IN PRIVATE CONVEYANCE.—Notwithstanding subsection (2), it is lawful and is not a violation of s. 790.01 for a person 18 years of age or older to possess a concealed firearm or other weapon for self-defense or other lawful purpose within the interior of a private conveyance, without a license, if the firearm or other weapon is securely encased or is otherwise not readily accessible for immediate use. Nothing herein contained prohibits the carrying of a legal firearm other than a handgun anywhere in a private conveyance when such firearm is being carried for a lawful use. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to authorize the carrying of a concealed firearm or other weapon on the person. This subsection shall be liberally construed in favor of the lawful use, ownership, and possession of firearms and other weapons, including lawful self-defense as provided 

“Securely encased” means in a glove compartment, whether or not locked; snapped in a holster; in a gun case, whether or not locked; in a zippered gun case; or in a closed box or container which requires a lid or cover to be opened for access. 

So, do we really need this law? Yes if only to tweak the opposition’s nose.

Those are my two cents and I am sticking to them…or something like that.

Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, and Ron Davis, the father of Jordan Davis testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as part of three days of hearings on a range of issues.

“Never mind that your child or your loved one was unarmed. It’s what I think they had,” Davis said of the law.

“You don’t have to have a weapon, as long as I think you have a weapon, then it’s reasonable to the shooter, and that’s all they need to prove.”

via Parents Of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis Testify At Human Rights Hearing | WJCT NEWS.

The first group I heard doing something like this was Dream Defenders going to the U.N. Human Rights Committee and actually filing a report about the Trayvon Martin case that I think it was written by Nancy Grace and it does not even come close to the evidence collected and presented at trial. As far as I can figure, no opposing view or even a copy of the trial transcript was presented to counter this load of manure.

I find sad that Ms Fulton went to cry crocodile tears to the OAS when this organization just decided to play Sgt Schulz with what is happening in Venezuela. But she will probably get an answer faster than anybody else as this international microorganisms do hate the USA.

Initially I was pissed that they actually had the balls to go to international organism (and I use the term thinking little bugs like Ebola) to make their case. But as Sebastian told me on another gun-related issue “The more they do their chicken little routine, the more we know we’re winning.”

And we are.

Take, for instance, Senate Bill 296.

Terrence Gorman, general counsel for the Department of Military Affairs and a staff attorney for the Florida National Guard stationed in St. Augustine, had just given testimony during a Senate committee hearing critical of a bill Hammer supports.,,,,

….The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, allows someone who is required to evacuate during an emergency like a hurricane to keep a gun on them even if they don’t have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

The National Guard responds to those types of emergencies.

People without proper training shouldn’t have weapons in those high-stress situations, Gorman told the committee last week.
NRA lobbyist’s protest to Rick Scott’s office leads to reversal letter

I know it has been 21 years after Hurricane Andrew and 8 years after Hurricane Katrina, but you cannot tell me that the lessons have been lost already. The stories of people evacuating the NOLA area via car, being stopped by police and having their weapons confiscated and destroyed are well documented in places like the book The Great New Orleans Gun Grab by Gordon Hutchinson & Todd Masson. Somehow it seems that leaving people at the mercy of luck makes more sense than allowing them to defend themselves from the criminal element that prey on situations like that.

But what is really funny is that the National Guard is protesting this bill. Let’s not forget that after Andrew, they sent Guardsmen to “safeguard” the Homestead area…without ammunition in their rifles. I have heard tales of Guardsmen being robbed by criminals with boolits in their guns and leaving them pretty much naked and their superiors having to explain the idiocy of sending disarmed people out there.

If that is what qualifies as “responding to that type of emergencies” I do want that bill passed A.S.A.P.

On March 21 in the Polite Society Podcast, Paul Lathrop went on a rant about he disagrees with the concept of Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves.  I happen to agree and not only agree, I think that the works of  Dave Grossman are excellent but targeted to Law Enforcement and Military, not to the regular civilian that carries a gun for self-protection. That does not mean that there is stuff in his books that it does not apply or that we can learn from, but we are not warriors.

And that brings me to my personal peeve of the somewhat “cultish” admiration for the Knight and the Samurai. I think that as armed civilians we could have not chosen worst examples to “follow” and let’s start with this crap:

I am sorry but I do not “accept” death. I carry a gun and have gone through training and changed my head-in-the-clouds lifestyle because I do not want to be either harmed or killed by a Yakuza burakumin . I do understand that in a confrontation with a criminal, Death can happen to me as I am not perfect, but understanding the consequences and accepting it as fait accompli and making it part of my lifestyle are two very different things. If I were to accept Death, why would I even care to have a gun or prepare myself? The same goes for the Knight who would cheerfully die in battle doing the King’s business according to what they call honor.

Yes, you complain that both had a stick honor code that protected small children, puppies and enjoyed sunsets walking on the beach , but the reality is that both the Samurai and the Knight were pricks. Both were enforcers for a King or Daymo, they obtained riches by bloody enforcement of the rules or orders of their superiors and considered anybody under them at best a nuisance that could be hacked to pieces without fear of legal retribution. Best way for a commoner to lose his head? Somehow insult a Samurai or a Knight and see a flash of steel and a close shave to the trachea. Even the in Le Morte d’Arthur, we see how the most celebrated Knights in history have no issue slicing and dicing some unarmed commoners because they complained they were not doing their jobs. If you think about it, both behaved pretty much like what we today call Organized Crime.

The romanticism associated with these two baffles me as a civilian.  I don’t even think that our Military and LEO should consider them role models as their aim was subjugation of the lower classes and the defense of the kingdom against other pricks like them instead of liberation and protecting the People because their lives and liberty were valuable on its own and not because the Higher-Ups were worried about loss of income from taxes. And even then, the “acceptance” of Death should be eschewed or as General Patton said so succinctly: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

So who do Civilians should seek as role model? My very own choice (yours may vary) is the Pioneer/Homesteader: Somebody who wanted to live his life doing his work without interfering with others, but ready to lay down firepower to defend his family and his land from those who wish them harm.

Never start a fight; but always finish it.