First there was illegal alien sanctuary cities. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
The Left first established illegal alien sanctuary cities. From that, it was learned we could establish 2nd Amendment sanctuary states. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Missouri – Missouri passes Second Amendment Preservation Act
Wisconsin – Assembly passes ‘Second Amendment sanctuary’ bill
Tennessee – Governor’s signature makes Tennessee a Second Amendment sanctuary
Proclaimed 2nd Amendment Sanctuary States To Date:
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Idaho
Kansas
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
West Virginia
Wyoming
Where does Florida stand?
42 out of 67 counties, 3 cities, and 1 town have adopted Second Amendment sanctuary (or other pro-Second Amendment) resolutions.
In 2013, all 67 sheriffs in Florida had signed a letter saying that they will not enforce laws that violate the Constitution or infringe on the rights of the people to own firearms
Who are we to judge? However, by all appearances the author does not want to hold the 15-year-old accountable. The article should have more correctly stated: “The firearm was illegally in the possession of a 15-year-old family friend.” In the state of Florida, a 15-year-old cannot legally own or be in possession of a firearm.
A Florida child was grazed by a bullet after a 4-year-old relative fired a gun at the kids’ home, according to authorities.
Tampa Police said the bullet grazed the leg of the 6-year-old, who did not sustain serious injuries but was hospitalized, the Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday.
Authorities said the firearm was hidden under a sofa at the residence and “appears” to belong to a 15-year-old family friend, according to the outlet.
Andrew Warren, State Attorney for Hillsborough County, in which Tampa is located, took to Twitter to weigh in on the incident.
“My anger-fueled tirade on gun safety & the gun violence epidemic does not lend itself to 280 characters. So I’ll just say thank God he’s alive,” tweeted Warren.
Police said that no one else was injured in the shooting, according to the paper.
Whether any adults were home when the shooting unfolded was not detailed in a media release referred to by the outlet.
At least 369 unintended shootings by children occurred in the U.S. last year, leading to 142 deaths and 242 injuries, according to statistics from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The site and AAP recommend that while guns should not be kept in homes with children, if firearms are present, they should be stored in a safe or lock box.
The number of firearm sales checks represents the second-highest May on record, following only the massive firearm-buying surge experienced in May 2020.
Strong gun sales continued in May, with FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System data showing nearly 1.3 million background checks were conducted pursuant to firearms sales last month. Moreover, the FBI conducted a total of 3.2 million firearm-related background checks of all types – including checks for NICS exempt firearm permits that allow holders to purchase firearms without an additional background check for the next five years. The number of firearm sales checks represents the second-highest May on record, following only the massive firearm-buying surge experienced in May 2020.
Since the surge in gun-buying began at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, those in the firearms industry and even the reluctant news media have made two important observations: (1) The increase in gun purchasing included many first-time gun buyers; (2) Those purchasing firearms did not conform to stereotypes about the “typical” American gun owner
In February, firearm industry trade group the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) released data on the firearm sales increase based on a survey of Federal Firearm Licensees (gun dealers). A press release explained “NSSF estimates that 40 percent of those gun sales were for first-time gun buyers, totaling 8.4 million new gun owners in the United States in 2020.” The item went on to note, “Firearm ownership is also increasingly diverse as sales among women accounted for 40 percent of all sales, and purchases by African Americans increased by 56 percent compared to 2019.
In the early months of the pandemic, the legacy press was forced to cover the increase in gun sales and the diversity of those choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights
In March 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle shared the story of Petaluma, Calif. gun shop owner Gabriel Vaughn, who told the paper “about 90% of his customers in recent days have been first-time gun buyers.” That same week, the New York Times reported that “Some dealers said an unusually high proportion of sales have been to first-time gun buyers.”
On May 29, the New York Times added to the growing understanding of America’s ongoing and diverse gun-buying surge by reporting on new data from a survey conducted by Northeastern University and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. While the figures reported were not quite the same as those presented by NSSF, the information painted a picture of a growing and diverse group of gun owners.
Summarizing the findings, the Times explained,
about a fifth of all Americans who bought guns last year were first-time gun owners. And the data, which has not been previously released, showed that new owners were less likely than usual to be male and white. Half were women, a fifth were Black and a fifth were Hispanic.
Adding an anecdote, the New York Times noted,
Many gun store workers reported that last year set records for sales and also that they noticed different types of buyers walking in the door. Thomas Harris, a former law enforcement officer who works at the gun counter at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Roanoke, Va., said that around March last year, the customers he would speak with began to include more white-collar workers, such as people from insurance firms and software companies. He said many of the buyers were not conservative and most had never handled a gun.
With even the gun confiscation proponents at New York Times acknowledging the diverse face of gun ownership in America, anti-gun activists and politicians should take note. The ugly prejudices and stereotypes they share and employ to attack the gun community do not comport to reality and their bigoted campaign becomes more transparent all the time.
Nikki Fried, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture: “I’m proud to work with Everytown for Gun Safety . . . “
The Florida Department of Agriculture has partnered with Everytown for Gun Safety.
Nikki Fried is ordering Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services buildings to light up orange this weekend to support gun violence awareness.
Wear Orange Weekend runs Saturday and Sunday. Friday was also National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
The department is illuminating the historic Mayo Building located across from the Florida Capitol, as well as the department’s Tallahassee Regional Licensing Office, where the department processes concealed weapons permit applications.
Nikki Fried is bathing her office building orange to raise awareness of gun violence.
“With so many lives lost to gun violence in the Sunshine State and around the nation, it’s important to send a message: we remain determined to see common-sense gun violence prevention reforms enacted to protect our communities,” Fried said. “As the lives of children, parents, friends, loved ones and fellow Floridians have been cut short by firearms, we will stand strong to demand change that honors their memory.”
“I’m proud to work with Everytown for Gun Safety to mark this occasion, which I hope will lead to reflection, persistence, and long-overdue action on gun violence.”
Fried proclaimed Friday, June 4, as Gun Violence Awareness Day in Florida in a proclamation on behalf of the Florida Cabinet.
The key department buildings are lit orange in a partnership with Everytown for Gun Safety, America’s largest gun violence prevention organization.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that an exception to the Fourth Amendment for “community caretaking” does not allow police to enter and search a home without a warrant.
SCOTUS Rules Police Cannot Search Homes Without Warrants in the Name of ‘Community Caretaking’
MAY 17, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that an exception to the Fourth Amendment for “community caretaking” does not allow police to enter and search a home without a warrant.
The “community caretaking” exception originated from a 1973 case, Cady v. Dombrowski, in which an officer took a gun out of an impounded car without a warrant. The Supreme Court ruled at the time that police can conduct such warrantless searches if they are performing “community caretaking functions” in a “reasonable” manner.
Monday’s ruling, in the case Caniglia v. Strom, centered on whether that exception also justifies warrantless searches of homes. In a 9-0 ruling, the court decided that it does not.
While Cady recognized that police perform “many civil tasks” in modern society, the “recognition that these tasks exist” is not “an open-ended license to perform them anywhere,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. “The Fourth Amendment protects ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,’” he continued.
(As Justice Samuel Alito noted in his concurrence, Monday’s ruling does not apply to another Fourth Amendment exception known as the “exigent circumstances” exception, which allows police to enter homes without a warrant to help “an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.’”)
“Perhaps not coincidentally, the Court’s unanimous ruling comes at a time of national debate over whether we should dial back the scope of police activities and only use them for actual law-enforcement purposes,” said Clark Neily, senior vice president for criminal justice at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, which had filed a brief urging the court to agreed with Caniglia. “This represents a welcome, albeit unusual, refusal on the justices’ part to give the government greater leeway in conducting warrantless searches of people’s homes and personal effects.”
The suit was filed by a Rhode Island man, Edward Caniglia, after police officers searched his home and seized two handguns without a warrant in 2015. During an argument with his wife, Caniglia had placed a handgun on the dining room table and asked her to “shoot [him] and get it over with.” His wife left and spent the night elsewhere, and after not being able to reach him the next day, called the police. The police found Caniglia on his porch; he denied he was suicidal but agreed to go to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation “on the condition that the officers would not confiscate his firearms,” according to Monday’s opinion.
The police did so anyway after he left.
Caniglia later sued the officers, arguing that the search and seizure violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The officers argued that their actions were legal because they believed Caniglia was suicidal. The District Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the police, ruling that the search counted as “community caretaking”—and that Cady had extended to both cars and homes.
A nonpartisan coalition of civil liberty advocates had worried that a similar Supreme Court ruling could have created a potentially dangerous precedent. The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union Foundation had joined the Cato Institute to file a joint brief urging the court to keep the community caretaking exception “confined to its historic vehicle-related origins” and reject a broader standard that “would give police free rein to enter the home without probable cause or a warrant.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court did just that, ruling that neither “the holding nor logic” of Cady justified the police’s actions.
Supreme Court to Hear Case on Right to Carry Concealed Guns for Self-Defense
The U.S. Supreme Court stepped back into the heated debate over gun rights on Monday, agreeing to hear a challenge backed by the National Rifle Association to New York state’s restrictions on people carrying concealed handguns in public in a case that could further undermine firearms control efforts nationally.
FLORIDA – Bill allowing guns in churches heads to Governor for signature – April 29, 2021
TALLAHASSEE — A proposal that would let people with concealed-weapons licenses pack heat at churches or other religious institutions that share properties with schools is heading to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Florida Legislature StrengthensFirearms Preemption Enforcement Bill Passed – Bill awaits Governor’s signature
Florida law that prohibits local ordinances on guns and ammunition just got stronger
Currently, Florida law forbids local governments from passing any policies about the “purchase, sale, transfer, taxation, manufacture, ownership, possession, storage, and transportation” of guns or ammunition. The entire gun policy area is left up to the state. If local officials violate this law by enacting a gun policy, they are subject to a $5,000 court fine — and the law allows citizens or gun groups to sue the local governments for their attorney’s fees up to $100,000 in damages.
Senator Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota: “The bill closes a “loophole.”
LAWMAKERS GIVE BOOST TO GUNS AT CHURCH
TALLAHASSEE — A proposal that would let people with concealed-weapons licenses pack heat at churches or other religious institutions that share properties with schools is heading to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday voted 24-16 along party lines to give final approval to the measure (HB 259), which passed the House last month. DeSantis’ office did not immediately reply to a question about whether the governor will sign the bill.
Florida law generally allows people to carry concealed weapons at churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions, but it bars being armed on school properties. That leads to people being prevented from carrying guns on properties shared by religious institutions and schools.
Senate sponsor Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, said the bill closes a “loophole.”
“This is about safety,” Gruters said. “We saw what happened in Texas when a church, unfortunately, was the target. Six seconds it took them to secure that location. This gives schools the needed safety they need. It gives churches the additional security that they need. This gives the property owners the ultimate responsibility to make the decision that’s best for them.”
One trained, good guy with a gun could have stopped the one bad guy with a gun.
FACTS – What is known . . .
Incident duration: >58 minutes
Fatalities: 10
Victims:
Ages: 20 – 65
Genders:
Male: 4
Female: 6
First victims: 2 victims (1st victim – Neven Stanisic and 2nd victim – Kevin Mahoney) shot in parking lot outside King Soopers
Gun used: Ruger AR-556 pistol
First shots fired: 2:30 PM
911 calls received: 2:33 PM
Scene secured: 3:28 PM
Suspect Assailant:
Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa
Age: 21
Marital status: Single
Nationality: Syrian
Immigrated to the U.S. in 2002
Residence: Arvada, Colorado
The assailant went on a 9 minute, unopposed shooting spree.
Officer Eric Talley was the last fatality.
The terrifying hour as employees and shoppers hid when a gunman went on a shooting spree at a Colorado grocery store
BOULDER, Colo. — A gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., on Monday afternoon, killing 10 people, including a police officer, the authorities in Boulder said.
The police said that they had taken a suspect into custody after the shooting. That person was injured, the authorities said. Videos showed a handcuffed man being escorted from the building by officers, shirtless and with his right leg appearing to be covered in blood.
People inside the grocery, King Soopers, described a harrowing and chaotic scene inside the store.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Alex Arellano, 35, who was working in the meat department at King Soopers, in the South Boulder area, when he heard a series of gunshots, then saw people running toward an exit near his department.
The authorities identified the officer who died as Eric Talley, a 51-year-old who joined the department in 2010. Officer Talley was the first to respond to the scene when reports of a gunman came in, the police said.
“He was, by all accounts, one of the outstanding officers at the Boulder Police Department and his life was cut far too short,” said the Boulder County district attorney, Michael Dougherty.
Dean Schiller, who posted a live video from the scene shortly after the shooting began, said he heard about a dozen shots and saw three people who appeared to be wounded — two in the parking lot and one inside the supermarket.
As officers secured the building, more than a dozen people were led out of the supermarket, a King Soopers in a residential area a couple of miles south of the campus of the University of Colorado. The grocery store usually draws a mix of families and college students.
In Mr. Schiller’s video, gunshots could be heard coming from inside the store, with officers gathering at the entrance.
Over a loudspeaker, police officers called to the scene could be heard saying, “The entire building is surrounded, you need to surrender.”
“Come out with your hands up,” the officers said. Dozens of police officers and dozens of vehicles descended on the scene.
Newlyweds Quinlyn and Neven Sloan, both 21, had stopped into the store to pick up supplies for beef stroganoff when they heard the shooting. Ms. Sloan, a student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that at first she didn’t know what the noise was.
The couple had split up in the store — he was in produce, she said, and she was standing in front of the dairy case — when customers began running.
“It was muffled at first,” she said, “and I thought maybe someone had dropped something, but then it went again, probably about 15 to 20 shots, really fast. My husband came up and shoved me out the door, and yelled, ‘Call 911!’ Then he ran back in to make sure a couple of older ladies who were in the aisles got out OK.”
Sprinting across the parking lot, she said, she took cover behind a building, to be joined minutes later by her husband. Only then, she added, did they look down and realize that, because they hadn’t bothered to use a cart, they had fled with their arms full of the meat, noodles and sherry they had intended to buy.
“These were people going about their day, doing their food shopping, and their lives were cut abruptly and tragically short,” Mr. Dougherty said. “I promise the victims and the people of the state of Colorado that we will secure justice.”
— Bryan Pietsch, Will Wright, Neil Vigdor, Erik Vance and Shawn Hubler ‘The shots are getting closer.’ Witnesses recounted moments of terror, inside and outside the store.
Alex Arellano, 35, was working in the meat department at King Soopers when he heard a series of gunshots, and then saw people running toward an exit near his department.
“The shots are getting closer,” he recalled. “I’m thinking of my parents, and I was freaking out.” For a while, Mr. Arellano said he and two other men hid in the department. He did not see the assailant but could hear the gunfire.
“We were scared cause, you know, there’s entry points where that individual could show up,” he said. “I thought I was going to die.”
Mr. Arellano and the other men eventually escaped through an exit in the back of the building, he said.
Sarah Moonshadow was at the checkout with her son, when she, too, heard shots fired.
“We ducked and I just started counting in between shots, and by the fourth shot I told my son, we have to run,” she said. As they were running, two shots were fired in their direction, she said.
When they made it outside, they saw a body lying in the road.
“I can tell that he wasn’t moving,” she said. “And so, I’m pretty sure he was gone. And I just broke down across the street. I just couldn’t believe we were able to make it across.”
Ms. Moonshadow moved back to Boulder, her hometown, from Denver after she became concerned about Denver becoming unsafe. “This isn’t how Boulder is, you know,” she said. “This isn’t what happens here.”
Taylor Shaver, who works at Art Cleaners, a dry cleaning and laundry business near the supermarket, said that she heard at least 10 gunshots and saw people running from the grocery store.
“I’m in the bathroom hiding,” Ms. Shaver said. “I heard this loud boom. I instantly knew. There was a ton of shots. My stomach dropped.”
Ms. Shaver, 18, added that it was particularly unnerving because it was her first day working alone at the dry cleaning business. She said she had left the bathroom to see what was going outside the business.
“Oh my gosh, you can see all these people walking with their hands up,” she said. “I’ve never seen this many police officers in my life.”
Jordan Crumby, a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was about to get a tattoo with the word “warning” on her hip at Auspicious Tattoo, a shop across from the grocery store, when the shooting began.
Ms. Crumby, 31, said she stepped outside to record a video of the scene for her Instagram feed, when the police waved her away. Officers with tactical gear and rifles could be seen swarming the shopping center. People from the grocery store, she said, were being evacuated.
“They had their hands over their heads and they’re getting escorted out,” she said. “I said, ‘We should probably go inside.’”
Kevin Daly, who owns a restaurant and brewery in the shopping center, said he was inside, readying his business for reopening after the pandemic when his manager, in a bank across the parking lot, heard the gunshots.
“Someone saw the livestream, so we pulled it up and locked ourselves in the office,” he said, the start of an hourslong ordeal in which he and his employees periodically opened the door to shelter traumatized witnesses to the shooting.
“The guy just went in there and started shooting,” he said. “People were just in shock. A lot of them had seen bodies and carnage.”
Mr. Daly said he didn’t know who the victims were “and I don’t know what happened in the grocery store, but I do know that it is easier to get a gun in this state than it is to get a driver’s license or to vote.”
FDACS closed its concealed carry permit application portal at the start of the pandemic. (Editorial comment: In Florida, it is alicense not a permit.)
March 17, 2021
A bill to force the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to keep a concealed carry permit application available online is on its way through the committee process after passing its first House panel Wednesday.
That’s in response to when the department, under Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, took down its concealed carry permit application portal on March 23, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Florida. That portal remained closed for nearly three months while the Agriculture Department faced lawsuits from gun rights groups over the closures.
The move came after Gov. Ron DeSantis recommended state offices temporarily close to the public beginning March 19.
Local law enforcement agencies and tax collector offices throughout the state largely suspended fingerprint services. Halting those services left first-time concealed weapons permit applicants unable to obtain fingerprints from those providers, according to the Agriculture Department. That would have forced the department to issue refunds, which it legally cannot do.
The House Civil Justice and Property Rights Subcommittee voted 10-6, along party lines, to advance the bill.
Bill sponsor Rep. Blaise Ingoglia did not mention Fried, the lone Democrat elected to a statewide office in Florida, while outlining his bill (HB 1343). But he confirmed the effort was in direct response to the closures.
“The reasoning for [the department] closing down the portal was saying that you could not get fingerprints at the time, which was absolutely not true. You could have gotten it at any sheriff’s office,” Ingoglia said.
“By showing that you could do this same thing online as you could do by paper shows that they took it down arbitrarily,” he told the committee. “That’s what we’re trying to stop. We’re saying you have to keep going continually.”
The right to bear arms is a constitutional right, stressed Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican. Yet other portals remained open during the concealed carry permit stoppage.
Democratic Rep. Mike Gottlieb, a criminal defense lawyer from Davie, said he saw the justice system come to a halt at the beginning of the pandemic. Sheriff’s offices and local police departments were not allowing face-to-face contact, preventing fingerprinting, he insisted.
He said he didn’t believe the bill was unnecessary, noting he has a concealed carry permit himself. However, he considered the effort an overreach and “much ado about nothing.”
“This was a very trying time for everybody in society, and to speculate that they took it down for a nefarious reason to deny people their opportunity to have a concealed carry permit is really, I don’t think, our mission here,” Gottlieb said.
In a statement to Florida Politics, Fried called the bill “overreaching, unnecessary and as wasteful as the failed lawsuit filed by fringe activists.” She also highlighted the “record-high” 400,000 licenses issued or renewed last year despite the pandemic.
“State law doesn’t allow us to refund applicants who don’t complete the process, including their fingerprints,” Fried said. “Because fingerprinting was largely unavailable during the pandemic, including from local law enforcement and tax collector offices, we made the responsible decision to temporarily suspend the online portal to prevent frustration from applicants.”
Fried added that the department never stopped processing applications it did receive.
“If Rep. Ingoglia really wants to help improve concealed weapons licensing, he could start with legislation to help us refund applicant fees, instead of politically-motivated bills that are a non-solution in search of a non-existent problem.”
It’s not the first attack the Republican-controlled Legislature has launched against FDACS since Fried took control. Last year, the House voted to strip the department of the Office of Energy and to move it back to the Department of Environmental protection, where it rested until 2011. Fried called that effort, backed by DeSantis, a “partisan power grab.”
Ingoglia’s bill next heads to the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee. Estero Republican Sen. Ray Rodrigues‘ identical version (SB 1882), filed late last month, awaits its first hearing. The legislation would take effect in July.
