I am copy/pasting a lot of Lee Williams’ article hoping he won’t mind:

When it comes to guns, Byrd has proven time and time again he is one of us and not a RINO, and I’m reasonably certain that when he cuts himself shaving, he bleeds Hoppe’s #9.

Unfortunately, none of that mattered to Luis Valdes, the Florida Director of the Gun Owners of America.

For reasons known only to Valdes, he singled Byrd out for blame Wednesday – posting an extremely offensive and naïve statement on social media:

Personally, I’ve never met Valdes, although we’ve spoken on the phone a few times. It is important that he and other advocates who come before the legislature understand the legislative process, and Valdes’ ignorant post proves he does not understand the process. Even worse, he did a disservice to gun owners by attacking a trusted lawmaker — a true friend of ours — who champions the Second Amendment.

In my opinion, Valdes must think that by attacking legislators who have a proven track record of advocating for gun owners, he somehow gains street cred. In fact, all this does is prove he does not deserve the trust of gun owners or the ability to speak on their behalf.

Valdes needs to understand that limited committee time cannot be spent on bills that have no chance of passing. That includes bills that do not have a companion in the other chamber. Legislators must find a sponsor in the other chamber. When they don’t or can’t, the blame lies with them for failing to do their job, not with a committee chairman who has a duty to ensure that bills of other members who have done their homework are heard.

Florida GOA director bashes pro-gun state lawmaker – by Lee Williams – The Gun Writer (substack.com)

I know I should be watching Tennessee rather than Florida now that I am a resident of the Volunteer state, but I cannot just shed 2 decades of Gunshine State Gun Rights in a couple of months.

Long time readers of the blog suffered with me trying to understand the intricacies of bills introduced in the Florida legislature and how they advanced (or not) through the process. If there was anything we learned is that if a bill in one side did not have a companion bill on the other, the chances of passing were akin to Shannon Watts telling the truth about “gun safety.”

And although I share the passion and think Gun Bills are a priority for our legislatures, I am also not childish enough to figure out they are not the only bills introduced during a three month legislative process!  Do you know how many bills were introduced in the Florida Legislation last session?

That is 3,096 bills introduced that must be read, analyzed, modified, and discussed (or not) from the end of January till last day of session in April 30. So in about 90 days give or take the had to go through all of that. That is some 34 bills a day or 1.4 bills per hour in a 24 hour day, seven days a week for three months! A bit unrealistic for the real world, I would say.

So, anybody who understand basic life, also understand that there is no way all those bills will make it because a legislative triage is needed in order to keep the State running. You may not like all that comes out of the Legislature, but some things are indeed necessary for the proper functioning of the Sunshine State and they must be take care of also, budgets being the first thing that comes to mind.

And another thing: The “killing” of bills is going to be mostly a housekeeping affair once it is determined they have no chance in hell to advance. By design , the calendar needs to be cleared so people can focus on those bills that are advancing and even then some of that housecleaning is done at the last possible moment and somebody has to do it. In this case, it was  Byrd’s duty so GOA is attacking the designated janitor because somebody else missed the urinal and peed on the tiles. By the way, if Valdez wants to blame somebody for bills not having companions and then getting killed, he has to go no further than pointing his accusatory finger to fellow Floridians who have been sitting on their asses this last 5 years and demanding the moon without putting one ounce of effort for our Gun Rights. Or they gone tactical pier fishing with plate carriers and the rest of the clown furniture generating miles of unproductive and negative news for the cause.

But I fear this won’t be GOA’s only screw up in Florida.

Oh well.