A Million Reasons To Celebrate, One Reason To Keep Working

In 1987, Florida became the eighth state, and the first large state, to adopt a “shall issue” law requiring the state to issue carry permits to applicants with clean criminal records, no record of drug abuse or alcohol problems and no known record of violent mental illness.

Next week, the state of 19 million people will cross the threshold to a million active permits:

Applications for the permits in the state of 19.1 million people have doubled since 2007. Only 0.3 percent of the more than 2 million total permits issued since 1987 have been revoked, said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.

“Floridians who are obtaining these licenses are obtaining them for the right reason and are using them in an appropriate way,” Putnam said.

Florida’s adoption of concealed carry in 1987 was the Battle of Gettysburg in the war over the Second Amendment. For the previous twenty years, gun control had gone from “nutty racist fringe” to “dominant racist ideology”; a majority of Americans, the stats said, supported banning handguns; guns in the hands of the law-abiding were banned not only in authoritarian cesspools like Chicago and DC, but in placid burbs like Morton Grove, Illinois.

Bur since Florida flipped the orcs the finger, the tide has turned…

…everywhere but in the mainstream media. Reuters – who wrote this story – notes…:

Florida has been a bastion for gun owners, with some of the most expansive laws on the books regarding who can carry weapons and when they can be used.

OK, we’ll call that a flub by someone who doesn’t know the issue (or gets their information from the media): the United States has the expansive law, the Second Amendment, that says we all have the right, granted by God or whatever creator you believe in, to keep and bear arms. States may place prudent restrictions on that right. Florida merely has among the most enlightened set of restrictions.

But this…:

A state law that can make it difficult to prosecute shooters who claim self-defense has come under scrutiny following the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in February.

…is proof that we’ve got a ways to go.

“Stand your Ground” laws don’t “make it difficult to prosecute”; they shield the law-abiding, legitimate self-defense shooter from spurious, agenda-driven legal harassment. And in the vast majority of cases that don’t get politicized by a president during an election year, they work well.

Anyway – congrats, Florida!

Posted

December 13, 2012

Victim Disarmament

Mitch Berg

Tags:

stand your ground

Comments

10 responses to “A Million Reasons To Celebrate, One Reason To Keep Working”

swiftee

December 13, 2012

I happen to be working in Tampa right now, and I must say the the addition of a shoulder holster makes even the most appealing thong display just that much better.
Seflores

December 13, 2012

Not to go Penigma on you, but twenty years ago, I was working in the car rental industry. This was not long after Florida decided that 2nd Amendment meant what it said and as Mitch notes above, the prime users of the 1st Amendment predicted mayhem and shoot outs over parking spaces at Disneyworld.
You might remember the stories coming out of Florida and the Southeast in general where tourists, particularly foreigners, were being targeted at rest stops. Tourists, many of whom carry out-sized amounts of cash, and of which Florida has more than a fair share, were not likely to be packing where as with the native, resident Floridian, there was a chance that a robbery attempt might result in your immediate death from a carrying non-victim. Criminals aren’t ones to take chances so many tourists were robbed, some were shot and more than a few died from their wounds. One of the tells that a person might be a tourist to the criminal element were Florida license tags. At the time, Florida required all hired cars to have a ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ suffix to note the hired car status. Another tell was a license plate that had the word “Manatee” on the bottom because a license agency in Manatee county offered the best rate for license tags, so many operators were getting their ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ tags from there to save thousands in license costs.
After a high profile (eg: national & international news making) triple homicide at a rest stop near Daytona (if memory serves) of some Euro-Tourists who were driving a rental with the Manatee tags, the state did away with the Y & Z tags and required all license agencies to charge the same price for tags for rental cars. They also required the rental car co’s to remove all identification that the vehicle was rented.
The criminals moved on to other victims (or didn’t, as Florida’s crime rate dropped significantly), but to me, it was an important lesson in how concealed carry works to reduce crime.
nerdbert

December 13, 2012

I was there when this was just starting and I was one of those odd-balls who got a permit. Living in a subdivision where 75% of the folks were from NYC made life pretty interesting when they found out I didn’t just have “a gun”, I was the “gun nut with the whole arsenal who carried!” At least I wasn’t in Miami-Dade where getting permit was always trouble, but it still wasn’t easy in the beginning.

Yeah, I let that permit lapse years ago, so I’ll not be able to claim that I’m one in a million 😉 and I’ll just have to say congrats to my former comrades down there.
Terry

December 13, 2012

. . . we all have the right, granted by God or whatever creator you believe in, to keep and bear arms.
Many people in the U.S., perhaps a majority, believe that you have no rights other than those granted you by the State.
Scott Hughes

December 13, 2012

Terry, I’ve found all to often that those that believe the State grants Rights also are the first to b*tch about someone violating some made up right they claim to have even though no such right was addressed in the Constitution or the BOR.
LearnedFoot

December 13, 2012

” even the most appealing thong display just that much better.”

The right to bear arms and bare butt cheeks.
Kermit

December 13, 2012

I was just down Sarasota way last month. The hotel I stayed at was also a conference center. On Saturday morning they had an NRA class for carry permits. Every single attendee I saw was a woman. I’m not sure about the thong thing, but they were sure about wanting to arm themselves.
I was wearing a Vikings shirt, and I poked my head in and said “Is this where the gun nutz are?” The guy running the class said “What, are you a football nut?” I replied, “No, I’m a supporter of the 2nd amendment.”

Warmed my heart.
The Big Stink

December 13, 2012

Japanese documents from WWII indicate the reason they never invaded the US mainland is they knew they would have to conquer us door-to-door because Americans were armed!
Terry

December 13, 2012

Big Stink you are WRONG!
Everyone knows that the reason the Japs never invaded the U.S. is that they would have had to fight their way past Slim Pickens!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=j7O-SUEh-54
bosshoss429

December 13, 2012

“OK, we’ll call that a flub by someone who doesn’t know the issue (or gets their information from the media”
Or a British reporter that’s still pissed off because a bunch of gun toting ordinary citizens kicked their asses out of our country! 😉
Seflores; I also worked in the car rental industry for 12 years back in the late 70s through the 80s. Started here ate their corporate HQ, then they sent me to CA and then to TX. I remember some stories told even back then about criminals targeting rental cars in FL, TX and CA.