Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Local profiles in courage shame Tallahassee
Here’s how a hero speaks: “This is more important to us than keeping our jobs.”
That’s Frank Quesada, a Coral Gables city commissioner. He and his colleagues are preparing to risk their offices, $5,000 fines and the costs of their prosecution by defying the gun lobby and its servants in the governor’s office and Florida Legislature. An ordinance awaiting final approval bans the sale of assault weapons in their city. A state law — the gun lobby’s law — says they can’t do that.
Cindy Guerra, a former chair of the Republican Party of Broward County, is similarly asking her colleagues on the Charter Review Commission to let voters decide whether to add an assault weapons ban to the county charter. The commission’s director, Carlos Verney, says some members are afraid to even discuss it, fearful of the costs of their prosecutions.
Florida and the nation need more heroes.
Banning assault weapons is what Congress ought to be doing for the nation. It’s what the Legislature ought to be doing for Florida. It’s what the Florida Constitution Revision Commission ought to be offering to voters in November. But it’s not happening. The bigger the office, the smaller the reserve of courage in too many politicians.
It’s in Florida’s local governments — those closest to the people — where the fears, the mounting anger and the pleading voices of the people are being heard in the aftermath of the Valentine’s Day massacre of 14 students and three teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
It was the eleventh mass shooting in Florida over the past several decades, including the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando that killed 50 people two years ago. Now, with a school the slaughterhouse and children the slaughtered, the people of Florida are out of patience.
In Coral Springs, Mayor Skip Campbell is calling for a statewide initiative to ban military-style weapons like the AR-15 and the high-capacity magazines that make mass killings so quick and so easy.
“We can’t convince them,” he said, referring to the Legislature, “so we’ll have to do it our way.”
Weston’s City Commission is planning to sue the state to toss out the gun lobby’s law and is asking other communities to join in.
“If not now, when?” asks Mayor Dan Stermer. “What has to happen?”
“Our kids, our society, deserve so much more than this,” says Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine, a former mayor of Parkland who’s friends with many of the grieving families. “Why should we be fearing for our lives just walking down the street?”
Dania Beach and Boca Raton have adopted resolutions calling for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and other reforms. Hillsborough County Commissioner Les Miller, a former legislator, will ask his board this week to ban assault weapons in defiance of the state law.
Many more communities need to join this overdue revolution.
There are no gun stores in Coral Gables so the proposed ban there may be only symbolic. But what a symbol. “This is a matter of principle,” said Mayor Raúl Valdes-Fauli. “Somebody has to take a stand.”
That principle, sad to say, seems lost on Tallahassee, where only the minority Democrats and almost no Republicans are willing to take the most effective step against mass killings.
Assault weapons designed for battlefields do not belong in civilian hands. Other reforms that might do some good are snarled in a struggle between the NRA, which opposes raising the legal age for firearms purchases to 21, and Democrats who oppose arming teachers, the gun lobby’s irresponsible distraction. If that has to happen, it should be by local option only and school superintendents, not just sheriffs, should make the decision.
This is an existential struggle between the gun lobby’s perverted idea of “freedom” and the right of everyone else to freedom from fear and to life itself. To the NRA, “freedom” means being able to manufacture, sell, buy and bear any weapon anywhere and anytime. If people die on that account, it’s the price of their “freedom.”
Truthfully, no constitutional right is that absolute. Judges issue gag orders to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial. Reporters aren’t allowed to witness jury deliberations. Religious freedom does not exempt churches from payroll taxes or parents from denying lifesaving medical care to their children. The First Amendment doesn’t prohibit libel and slander lawsuits or, as was famously said, allow someone to falsely cry “Fire!” in a crowded theater. When the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment to establish a right of possession, it expressly allowed for government regulation.
The NRA’s arrogance is exemplified by the law Coral Gables intends to defy. Passed in 2011 at the direction of its lobbyist, Marion Hammer, it bars local governments from making or enforcing any ordinance relating to guns. Officials in violation are exposed to $5,000 fines, to being removed from office and to paying the expenses of those who sue them. Their legal staffs are forbidden from representing them.
When Gov. Rick Scott gave municipalities an ultimatum to conform, many complied. But the city of Tallahassee refused to rescind pre-existing ordinances — no longer being enforced — against firing guns in parks. Florida Carry, a gun lobby nonprofit, sued to make the city wipe all gun ordinances from the books. A circuit judge ruled for the city, but denied its request to declare the state law unconstitutional. The First District Court of Appeal upheld the decision, saying that “no bona fide, actual and present need exists” to rule on the constitutionality.
Any effort by Scott to punish the Coral Gables officials would certainly create that actual and present need.
Public opinion is overwhelmingly against Florida’s current gun posture. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found 62 percent support for a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons, 96 percent in favor of background checks for all gun buyers and 87 percent for a mandatory waiting period on all gun sales. As for guns in classrooms, 56 percent said no. In a Florida Atlantic University poll, 69 percent favored an assault weapons ban. And 74 percent told Public Policy Polling that they would like to vote on such a ban.
Campbell, the Coral Springs mayor, proposes to give them that opportunity. It isn’t easy to get a statewide initiative on the ballot, and the 2020 election is the earliest practical opportunity, given that an initiative requires 766,200 valid signatures. But it can be done. The effort deserves the support of every mayor, city council and county commission in the state.
Leaders of 13 public interest groups, including the League of Women Voters of Florida, cited the poll numbers Friday in a letter urging the state Constitution Revision Commission to put the issue on the 2018 ballot.
“There is a big difference between ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ and between ‘difficult’ and ‘impossible,’ ” they wrote to Commission Chairman Carlos Beruff. “We urge you to put politics aside and let the citizens of Florida have their say.”
If the commission won’t, Skip Campbell will. He mentions the successful 2002 amendment initiative to prohibit confining pregnant sows in tight-fitting cages. It made hog farming unfeasible in Florida.
“We have one for pigs. Why not for people?” asks Campbell.
Why not?
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 Julie Anderson.