Pols picked gun battle they’d lose

Florida legislators spawn dumb ideas the way seahorses spawn babies — hundreds at a time.

But every once in a while, they give birth to a plan so genuinely senseless that, from the moment it’s hatched, we know it’s too stupid to survive.

Such was the case six years ago when Sanford Republican Jason Brodeur proposed a law that sought to imprison doctors who discussed gun safety with their patients.

It didn’t matter if the patient walked into a psychiatrist’s office with an AR-15 and said he was feeling particularly homicidal that day.

If the doctor asked the patient what he planned to do with that gun, Brodeur wanted to imprison and fine the doctor … up to $5 million.

As a columnist, I often seek out expert legal opinions. In this case, I didn’t need to. I knew it was unconstitutional.

See, in America, you can’t imprison people for consensual conversations or free speech in general.

Maybe in Cuba or China. But not the U.S.

So on Jan. 16, 2011, I penned a column that said this bill had absolutely no chance of becoming law — that it was dangerous, nonsensical and blatantly unconstitutional.

But Florida legislators didn’t care. Egged on by the National Rifle Association, the politicians persisted.

They watered down the bill, reduced the fine and replaced the threat of prison with a threat of discipline from the state medical board.

But it was still unconstitutional. I knew it. Legal experts knew it. Judges from both parties repeatedly said so.

Still, Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Florida legislators spent six years — and tens of thousands of your tax dollars — trying to defend this dog of a dangerous law.

Finally this week — on the heels of yet another bipartisan beat down from the courts — the state conceded it was out of options and dropped the case.

The surrender was as necessary as it was overdue.

But here’s the real question you need to ask yourself: Why?

Why did they fight this long and this hard for a bill so obviously destined to die?

Partly because they don’t care about wasting your money. Partly because they don’t think about the real-life consequences of their actions.

But mainly because they were trying to distract.

See, there are real gun issues out there — ones that the majority of Floridians want addressed.

Citizens overwhelmingly want universal background checks, for instance, to ensure that criminals and the mentally ill can’t get weapons.

They also want high-capacity weapons off the streets.