It is usually Miguel who chides Florida gun owners for their inaction.
I grew up in Miami but moved away when I turned 18. Only my most extended family lives there and I don’t regularly go back. It’s not my home anymore, there is little to nothing I can do to affect change there.
My only specific interest in Florida gun rights is my, Florida carry permit, which I’ve had since I was 21 and my desire to continue to possess one as a non-resident because of the reciprocities it offers.
In a more general interest, I was proud of Florida being the “Gunshine” state. It was Florida that was largely the catalyst of the concealed carry movement when it went to a shall issue process in 1987.
The anti-gun movement has wanted to take down Florida since then. Oh, what a victory they could claim if they turned the Gunshine State into East California. Assault weapon bans, magazine capacity bans, and an end to preemptions, an attack on stand your ground and castle doctrine, are part of that. I believe what they want to most is to make Florida may issue like California, where only the most upstate redneck counties that border Alabama and rural Georgia will issue permits and everywhere else CCW is eliminated.
The damage it would do to concealed carry if Florida became may issue is incalculable. How many other swing states could see reversals from shall issue to may issue? Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Arizona, all have a few deep blue cities that hold enough of the population to swing them.
That’s why it is so important to stop the anti-gun bills before it gets to that point. If they can’t pick the low-hanging fruit, they get anything else.
Florida gun owners must show that they won’t take this lying down.
Take a look at Virginia. Virginia went Blue for the same reason Illinois is, two high population Blue bubbles representing the capital and state’s economic center hold a little more than half of the population of the state.
That made it possible for the state legislature and governor to pass anti-gun laws. That activated the pro-gun people in Virginia.
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/1214325698808209408
An hour to go before VIrginia Beach votes on its 2nd Amendment Sanctuary proposal and the line is around the block. pic.twitter.com/nmo0d9MidW
— Erik (@soderstrom) January 6, 2020
Virginia Citizens Defense League membership has doubled in the last month. 100,000 Virginians have shown up at local meetings opposing Governor Blackface’s gun ban proposals.
— Erik (@soderstrom) January 6, 2020
Did you catch that?
“100,000 Virginians have shown up at local meetings opposing Governor Blackface’s gun ban proposals.”
They showed up.
Growing up in Miami, I get it, Tallahassee is a bitch and half away. It’s an eight hour drive. If you want to protest the state legislature during a gun bill, you are taking two days off from work.
But show up at your state representative’s local office.
Get 5,000 gun owners to protest outside your state senator’s office on a Saturday for his staffers to see.
Make it clear that you are no happy and if you come out in droves to protest today, what message does that send about what you will do on election day?
And for God’s sake, leave your guns at home when you do. Flags are fine, but the media is already going to treat you like assholes, don’t give them rope to hang you as “insurrectionists threatening violence.”
You have the unfortunate position of being at the vanguard of this. I know you didn’t ask for it, but that’s the situation. Rise to the occasion and demonstrate for your rights, the gun owners across the country need you to do it.
Yall dont feel like the lone ranger, we goin thru the same crap up here
One small point of correction.
While Missouri does have two major cesspit ‘blue’ cities, KC & StL, those two put together do not have enough population to ‘swing’ much of anything outside their congressional districts.
We kicked Stuntater McCaskill to the curb (she was an anomaly anyway due to a sympathy vote) and both chambers of the legislature are so much majority conservative “R” that they’ve overridden previous gubbernatorial vetoes of pro-gun bills on several occasions.
That’s how we got not just concealed carry, but permitless carry and loosened up NFA.
Those two cities (not metro areas) may be blue, but the rest of the state is dark red and do not lightly suffer any gun controller antics.
South Carolina Legislature is solidly Red but can’t seem to pass any gun bills, good or, thank you, bad. Open carry has been tried for at least 5 years, passed the House once and died sine die in the Senate and never taken up again. The last one I remember was to allow concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol but you can’t consume any.
And our AG keeps cracking down on Columbia and Charleston over firearm preemption when they pass an ordinance on firearms.
Here in Virginia a majority of law enforcement folks say that they will not enforce unconstitutional laws…