Amendment to ban some guns needs fair hearing
Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the most extraordinary things keep happening.
A surge of protests forces Florida’s first small steps on gun control in 22 years. Students by the thousands stage walkouts at high schools nationwide to keep gun safety in the public mind. Momentum gathers for a huge March 24 demonstration in Washington to force action from a Congress practiced in avoidance.
And now arises the chance — with long odds, but a chance nonetheless — of getting a proposed amendment onto November’s ballot that would allow Floridians to place a ban on assault-style rifles in the state constitution.
It’s a breathtaking possibility. And it deserves to be put before Florida voters.
On Monday, the state’s Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) begins meeting in Tallahassee to consider which of three dozen potential constitutional amendments to send to voters. Remarkably, three of those proposals have been written in reaction to the Parkland shooting.
The most sweeping would raise the age of buying firearms to 21, impose a 10-day waiting period and require a “comprehensive” background check before a gun purchase, ban bump stocks and — most dramatic of all — end the sale and possession of assaultstyle weapons, as well as detachable magazines with more than nine rounds of ammunition, in this gunfriendly state.
It will take 22 votes from the 37 commissioners for an amendment proposal to reach the 2018 general election ballot in November. Their deadline is May
10.
It’s an uphill climb because most of the commission’s members were appointed by Republicans: Gov. Rick Scott and the House and Senate leaders. And in this state, where nation-setting concealed-carry and “stand your ground” laws got their start, the majority party is famous for bowing to the National Rifle Association.
And yet the most sweeping and effective of the proposed gun amendments, introduced just days ago, has four declared supporters.
Think how unlikely this is. The commission, a feature of state government that’s unique to Florida, meets once every 20 years to try to update the constitution (it’s one of five ways the constitution can be amended). This just happens to be one of those years.
With its deadline closing in fast, the CRC had just one public hearing left on its calendar. That was Tuesday, in St. Petersburg. A record 1,200 people showed up, including a busload of students and parents from Parkland. The hearing lasted an epic 10 hours, with many of the 430 speakers pleading for sensible gun restrictions.
It is a sad commentary on our political system that it should be so hard to set such common-sense policies as removing military-grade weapons from civilian hands. But until the nation’s second-worst school shooting occurred during this year’s legislative session, Florida’s lawmakers have been deaf, when not openly hostile, to any deviance from NRA orthodoxy. Yet the public wants action.
According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, 62 percent of Florida voters support a nationwide ban on the sale of “assault weapons.” A Florida Atlantic University poll found a majority of voters of every party affiliation supporting stricter gun laws; 69 percent support a ban on assault rifles.
And a Public Policy Polling survey, commissioned by a coalition of progressive groups, found that 73 percent of Floridians would like the opportunity to vote on a semiautomatic assault weapons ban.
The commissioners should give Floridians that chance. And if they fail, a new political committee called Ban Assault Weapons is laying groundwork for an amendment on the 2020 ballot. U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, who represents Parkland, is a leader of the effort.
“The Legislature should have banned assault weapons when they had the chance during session. They didn’t,” Deutch told Politico. “The polls are pretty clear and they back up what I’m hearing from constituents every day — it’s Democrats and Republicans saying this — there is broad agreement that weapons of war, like the AR-15, have no place in our communities.”
Commissioners can stand up for the people of the state, or they can continue to can carry the water for the closed-minded politicians who put most of them on the panel. The choice should be obvious.
Note: To contact members of the Constitution Review Commission, go to www.flcrc.gov/Commissioners.