Group pursuing weapons ban

Anti-gun organization wants to put assault rifles law on Florida’s ballot for 2020 vote

TALLAHASSEE — Frustrated by the Legislature’s refusal to pass a ban on assault weapons, a group of gun control advocates is working to put the issue before voters in 2020.

Ban Assault Weapons Now consists of relatives of victims of the mass shootings at Pulse nightclub and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as well as current and former elected officials. A ballot measure is necessary because the Legislature won’t act, group leaders said.

“We didn’t think it was going to happen through the Legislature, [and it] didn’t last year at the height of the emotion surrounding the issue,” said Paula Dockery, a committee member of BAWN and a former Republican state senator from Lakeland. “Just giving the voters of Florida the opportunity to vote on it would be a victory.”

In the wake of the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, during which 14 students and three faculty members died, the GOP-led Legislature responded to storms of protests from students and activists at the Capitol by passing some gun control measures.

But the changes — a three-day waiting period for rifle sales, increasing the minimum age to buy a

rifle from 18 to 21 and banning bump stock devices that allow for more rapid fire — fell short of the full ban on assault weapons that many of the protesters wanted.

Republicans rejected an attempt by Democrats to bring an assault weapons ban bill up for a vote on the floor. Orlando Democratic Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith sponsored the bill and says he will again next year, but he’s still in favor of the move toward a ballot measure.

“I think a ballot initiative is absolutely the way to go,” he said. “That doesn’t change my plans. I’m still filing my assault weapons ban in the House because we’re going to fail 100 percent of the times that we don’t try.”

Smith added that the threat of a constitutional amendment in 2020 could help his bill, which hasn’t been heard in committee the past two years.

It’s a long process for the measure to get on the ballot, however. First, BAWN must collect 766,200 petitions from citizens in 14 of Florida’s 27 congressional districts by Feb. 1, 2020, and have them certified by the Department of State.

Next, it must develop ballot language that will pass judicial review by the Florida Supreme Court, which will determine whether it’s constitutional and not misleading or confusing for voters.

Dockery said the ballot language is still being crafted with legal experts to ensure it passes muster with the court.

A constitutional challenge to the ban is almost certain. The National Rifle Association is already suing Gov. Rick Scott for signing the gun control bill into law this year, claiming it violates the Second Amendment.

NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, though, had little to say about BAWN’s initiative.

“I have no comment,” she said. “I have no interest in talking about what someone may or may not do two years in the future.”

Even if the measure gets on the ballot, it could backfire on gun control advocates if the NRA and other progun rights groups rally their voters to the polls. The measure needs 60 percent of the vote to pass, and President Donald Trump is expected to be at the top of the ticket. A re-energized base of voters could help Trump earn Florida’s coveted electoral votes.

For Smith, though, political concerns are secondary to ensuring an assault weapons ban makes it into law.

“What the advocates care about first and foremost is keeping their community safe from gun violence, which is a testament to how deeply people care about this, politics be damned,” he said. “They don’t care what the political consequences are, they don’t want to send their child to a public school to be murdered by a maniac with an assault rifle. I mean this is really important to people.”