Shameful gun proposal dishonors the dead

We’re reminded of the grim truth, headline after shocking headline: America has a gun problem.

Fifty-eight music fans fall in Las Vegas; 49 club revelers die in Orlando; 33 students are killed on the Virginia Tech campus; 25 churchgoers meet their God in Sutherland Springs, Texas; and 20 six- and seven-yearolds in Newtown, Connecticut, will never play again.

While the dead and wounded are still being counted, the call for sensible gun regulation is invariably greeted with the same response. “It’s the wrong time to discuss the issue when emotions are running so high.”

And so the call for action gets drowned out by the call for the “right time” to come along.

Five years of waiting for the right time to discuss guns and the loss of the Sandy Hook toddlers has produced exactly nothing in the way of reform.

On the contrary, just two weeks before the fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook tragedy, the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a piece of legislation that is the National Rifle Association’s top priority.

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, according to the NRA, is “the most farreaching expansion of self-defense rights in modern American history.”

And what does this “far reaching expansion” do? It establishes the right to carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the United States under the laws of your home state.

If you live in a loosely regulated state — one, for example, that doesn’t require a permit — you can travel to New York, which has stringent regulations, unencumbered by New York’s laws.

Further, if you are arrested by a confused New York cop for carrying an unlicensed concealed weapon, you can sue and collect damages under the protection of your home state’s lax regulations.

The reciprocity legislation was widely opposed by law enforcement agencies and will be challenged by at least a dozen attorneys general, but that didn’t stop the juggernaut.

Republicans, who revere state’s rights, seem to have forgotten their allegiance to the doctrine. Their bill, which passed 231 to 198, fundamentally rolls over a state’s right to control who may carry a concealed weapon and under what conditions.

The reciprocity bill is so obtrusive, it even overrides the right of a town or village to pass stringent concealed-carry laws. So much for states’ rights. Florida leaders should fight this proposal for the federal over-reach it is, no matter that Tallahassee has already pre-empted local governments from passing any kind of gun regulation.

NRA muscle prevailed in the House and likely will be flexed mightily when the bill gets to the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to become law. The GOP enjoys a twoseat advantage over the Democrats, but defections on both sides are inevitable if the House vote experience applies. The House bill picked up six Democrats, but lost 14 fellow Republicans.

Gun legislation in Florida, meanwhile, looks much quieter as lawmakers prepare for the legislative session that begins Jan. 9.

Bills calling for a psychiatric evaluation of a concealed-carry permit holder and another that would let citizens petition someone’s suitability to carry a concealed weapon, both died in committee. So did a bill to curtail high capacity magazines. Those three are worthy of discussion and would be strongly opposed by the NRA.

Bills that would have allowed concealed weapons to be carried in courthouses under certain conditions and permit concealed weapons on college campuses didn’t clear committee.

Sadly, in the fight to tighten gun laws, a tie is almost as good as a victory.

The right time for a serious discussion about sane control of guns and their use was yesterday — and a thousand yesterdays before.

Proposals like the reciprocity bill are not at all helpful. Indeed, that the measure enjoyed such strong congressional backing is an insult to the memory of the dead kids of Sandy Hook, the worshipers, the music fans, the partygoers, the college students and the hundreds of others who fall victim each day to unregulated guns.

The Senate should send it to the legislative graveyard where it belongs.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz.

The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, according to the NRA, is “the most far-reaching expansion of selfdefense rights in modern American history.”