The disarming story behind Publix cash for gun-loving Putnam

Frank Cerabino

Publix needs to let its employees work with loaded firearms at their sides.

It’s the only way to save face at this point.

The grocery chain has been trying to explain why it suddenly started functioning as a super(market) PAC for the self-described “proud NRA sellout” Adam Putnam. Publix has given the Republican gubernatorial candidate $670,000 in the past three years — an unprecedented level of political support from the company.

“We support bi-partisan, business-friendly candidates, regardless of political affiliation and we remain neutral on issues outside of our core business,” a Publix statement read in response to its donations to Putnam.

So then why go all in on Putnam? He’s not remotely bipartisan these days. He has morphed into Ginger Spice Trump for this campaign, complete with a nonsensical “Florida First” campaign motto — gotta watch for those candidates who are sleeper cells for Alabama — and a quest to be only marginally less repulsive than the Sean Hannity-backed candidate, U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis — a low bar if ever there was one.

As Florida’s secretary of agriculture and the guy who oversees concealed weapons permits in the state, Putnam has been working hard to earn his “proud NRA sellout” name. He has pushed for open carry of weapons in the state, allowing weapons in the dorms and classrooms of Florida’s universities, and grandstanding against raising the gun-buying age to 21 and waiting periods on gun sales.

Showing that his gun-lobby servitude has no bounds, Putnam also pushed for a harebrained regulation that would give some concealed weapons permit-holders their permits before the state could verify their background records. That’s like telling lawyers they can start trying cases before getting the result of their bar exams.

By contrast, Publix has been less enthusiastic about guns.

Ten years ago, when a Florida Legislature marinating in NRA campaign contributions passed a law that allowed workers with concealed weapons permits to bring guns to work with them and leave their weapons in their cars, Publix was one of Florida’s big businesses that challenged the law.

As a result, the NRA wrote

a letter to gun owners in the state to denounce Publix, Disney and other companies that have a “bias against firearms ownership and self-defense.”

Publix doesn’t have a uniform policy regarding guns for customers, but the supermarket chain has maintained a policy that forbids its employees with gun permits from bringing their firearms into the stores.

“We believe that each of us should be able to work in a safe and secure environment,” is how the Publix employee handbook justifies its no-guns-in-thestore policy.

Got a point there. Supermarkets are laboratories of stand-yourground opportunities.

Just last week, a Publix customer in Tallahassee left her shopping cart unattended in the checkout line while she went to one of the aisles to buy a Tupperware container. When she got back to the checkout line, another shopper who had been behind her had moved ahead of her in the line, according to police.

The two women started arguing, both telling each other they would meet again in the parking lot. And when they did, the woman who had been cut in line pulled out a handgun and pointed at the other woman, who passed out from fear, police said.

No shots were fired. But if only an armed 80-yearold bag boy had been on the scene!

That would be Putnam’s position. The more guns the better. Whether it’s drunken frat parties at Florida’s universities or parking lot confrontations like this one. If only more of us had more lethal weapons at our fingertips. Preferably strapped to our belts in plain view.

Florida, where shooting is a pleasure.

So c’mon, Publix. If you can rationalize paying good money to put an NRA-obedient quisling into the Governor’s Mansion, then you ought to be able to imagine a world where your customers would feel safer shopping in a supermarket amid your locked-and-loaded workers.