Corey Jones case proves open carry is crazy
Frank Cerabino
The Corey Jones shooting points out the serious disconnect with reality that legislators have in pushing for an open-carry gun law in Florida.
“The Legislature finds as a matter of public policy and fact that the possession and carrying of weapons and firearms by law-abiding individuals for lawful purposes, including self-defense, enhances public safety,” the language of the proposed new gun law declares.
As a matter of public policy and fact, that’s crazy talk.
Just look at what happened to Jones.
He was a 31-year-old, law-abiding black man who was one of Florida’s 1.4 million licensed gun owners. He had two jobs, no criminal record, and a car that broke down in the wee hours of the morning on an I-95 off-ramp in Palm Beach Gardens.
Did I mention that he was a young black man with a gun?
Yeah, that part didn’t make him more safe.
A Palm Beach Gardens officer in an unmarked vehicle rolled up to Jones’ disabled car at 3:15 a.m. while Jones was waiting for a tow truck to arrive. That encounter has yet to be fully explained by investigators. But this much is known: The officer fired six shots, killing Jones, who didn’t fire his legal weapon once at the officer.
In the days after the shooting, the tight-lipped Palm Beach Gardens Police Department released the one piece of information that was most helpful to its own officer: a photo of Jones’ handgun.
The implication was clear: Oh, the guy had a gun. No wonder the cop shot him.
But wait a second, wasn’t
Jones one of those “good guys with a gun” that the NRA keeps talking about? And aren’t we all better off when good guys such as Jones have guns? At least that’s the gun industry pitch.
And the one that’s prevailing among Florida lawmakers as their reckless open-carry gun law makes its way through the Republican-controlled committees on party-line votes.
The proposed law would allow anybody with a concealed weapons permit to display their firearm openly.
In some other states that have open-carry laws, the guns are required to be in holsters, and permit holders are supposed to carry their permits with them in case law enforcement officers ask to see them. Other states require special training for open carry and make approval by local law enforcement a requirement.
But not in Florida. No, carry the firearm anyway you like. Pistol in the back pocket? No problem. Rifle slung over a shoulder, commando style? Congratulations on taking back your country.
No special training. What can go wrong? And don’t worry about the cops. We’ll make sure they don’t hassle you.
The Florida legislation would allow weapons permit holders to openly display their weapons “in any place that a person has a right to be” — except, of course, in the state Legislature, where they don’t want no stinkin’ guns around.
And law enforcement officers would have to have “probable cause” that your gun is unlicensed before they can ask you about it. If not, “any person or entity infringing upon the rights conferred” by the open-carry law is liable to being fined $5,000.
It’s no wonder that so many law enforcement officers are against the open-carry law. Eightytwo percent of the voting members of the Florida Sheriff ’s Association have asked the group to oppose the open-carry legislation.
“Law enforcement agencies don’t even allow their non-uniformed officers to open-carry,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the Sheriff ’s Association Legislative Committee chair, told Stacey Singer of The Palm Beach Post. “You can’t tell what somebody’s motives are and what they are not. It’s 3 in the morning, you see somebody walking down the road, you see a guy with two .45s in their waistband. You can’t assume they are a law-abiding citizen with a permit.”
In the binary world that the NRA presents to boost gun sales, America is divided between “the good guys” and “the bad guys.”
But reality’s much more complicated than that. Often, good guys encounter other good guys in stressful circumstances, and when everyone’s got firearms, irreversible bad things can happen.
We got a reminder of that here in Palm Beach County. Apparently, the news hasn’t traveled to Tallahassee yet.