Orlando votes to join suit over guns

County might opt to challenge state on local restrictions

Orlando leaders voted Monday to join a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott and other state officials, challenging Florida’s ability to punish local leaders from officially considering firearms regulation.

The City Council voted 6-1 — with Commissioner Jim Gray dissenting — to join the lawsuit and gave assistant city attorney Kyle Shepherd permission to hire a law firm that already is working on the case for several other cities. City Attorney Mayanne Downs said the suit asks for a judge to declare the state law unconstitutional.

Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs also is considering joining the lawsuit and has asked County Attorney Jeff Newton to review the case, according to a letter sent to the Orange County Commission on April 5. Jacobs also asked Newton to draft an ordinance that would reinstate a

three-day waiting period on firearm purchases that the county had repealed in 2011 to avoid “draconian penalties” from the state.

“It’s one thing to preempt a local government from taking action in a specific area; it’s another to try and penalize local government officials from acting in their official responsibilities,” Mayor Buddy Dyer said. “That’s simply not appropriate, nor is it constitutional.”

The issue has come to the forefront since the Feb. 14 mass shooting at a Parkland high school that killed 17 people. Cities are challenging a statute that has been on the books since 2011 that creates uniform gun laws for the entire state and penalizes local officials who try to enact local gun laws.

The suit was filed this month in Leon County Circuit Court by 10 South Florida cities including Weston, Miramar, Miami Beach and Cutler Bay. Last week, Tallahassee chose to join the suit.

Dyer said the time is right to make a stand before legislators opt to impose penalties for local officials who propose other laws that conflict with state rules.

The 2011 law implemented fines up to $5,000 on elected officials who violated the law and allows the governor’s office to remove that person from office. The state also can fine a government up to $100,000; the law doesn’t allow government funds to be used to defend an official in court.

“They definitely went too far with the penalties,” Dyer said.

Downs said the statute created a “long list of chilling penalties” for all public

officials but also doesn’t preempt everything. She said even zoning cases involving gun shops become difficult to manage under the law.

Scott spokesman McKinley Lewis said the governor’s office is reviewing the lawsuit.

“But the Governor’s top priority has always been protecting the safety of our students and communities,” Lewis said. “That’s why Governor Scott proposed and then signed major legislation that strengthens school security and keeps firearms out of the hands of those with mental illness during the last legislative session.”

Commissioner Gray argued that the city should “stay in our lane” and not interfere with state business, after local officials had been outspoken in defending “home rule” during this year’s legislative session.

“We don’t control guns. I wish we did, but we don’t,” Gray said in the meeting. “This to me is more aesthetic, window dressing, grandstanding, whatever you want to call it.”

Commissioner Patty Sheehan said that after 49 people were killed at Pulse nightclub in 2016, she asked the city’s legal department about the ability to pass gun-control measures locally but was told they could not, because of the state law.

“We shouldn’t have to live in fear … because of firearm preemptions,” Sheehan said in the meeting. “I’m so sad that this had to happen to someone else … we have to do something.”

Jacobs could not be reached for comment about the lawsuit or the proposed county ordinance.