Tag Archives: Florida

Post Office Gun Ban Struck Down

Federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, of the Middle District of Florida, ruled that the ban on firearm possession in post offices is unconstitutional, in US v. Ayala. She cites the BRUEN test of general, historical legal tradition.

Mizelle gave the government multiple chances to present some evidence of such historical tradition. The best they could do?

the United States fails to point to sufficient historical evidence supporting § 930(a)’s application here. (providing only two paragraphs listing potential historical analogues without any analysis of how they are relevantly similar).

Mizelle herself did much more. Using USPS documents, she demonstrated that there has been a longstanding tradition of mail robberies and assaults; in a postal system itself of longstanding — pre-Revolutionary War — tradition. Yet never, until 1964 were firearms banned from any federal facility. The first specific post office gun ban was 1972. 18 U.S. Code § 930, the law under which Defendant Ayala was charged, didn’t come about until just 1988.

Mizelle took the government on a tour through American history, giving specific examples of the post office allowing clerks to arm themselves, and (again citing a USPS reference) “the Postmaster General armed railway mail clerks with “government-issued pistols” from World War I.” (emphasis in the original)

This is a lady who clearly read and understood Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ BRUEN decision. In fact, in a conversation I mentioned that this decision reads like she was a Thomas protégé. Which prompted me to look up Judge Mizelle

She clerked for Clarence Thomas. I think he can be proud.

By the way, for those interested, Mizelle was the same federal judge who struck down the fed ChinCOVID mask mandates.

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There’s One Group Of Gov Types Without Sovereign Immunity

This is a day for good news.

Florida has a state preemption statute: firearms regulation is the provenance of the state, not lower level local jurisdictions. Even better, Florida law includes significant civil penalties for hopped up local politicians that try passing their own little gun control laws in their little ponds.

Naturally, they don’t like that. What? Hold us responsible for breaking the law? We have sovereign immunity!

Today, the Florida Supreme Court disagreed with the wanna-be lawbreakers.

The imposition of these civil statutory actions for violations of the Preemption Statute does not violate governmental function immunity. It is not a core municipal function to occupy an area that the Legislature has preempted, and local governments have no lawful discretion or authority to enact ordinances that violate state preemption. See Fla. Power Corp., 579 So. 2d at 107 (“While the authority given to cities and counties in Florida is broad, both the constitution and statutes recognize that cities and counties have no authority to act in areas that the legislature has preempted.”).

Accordingly, we conclude that the First District did not err in concluding that governmental function immunity does not prohibit the statutory actions in section 790.33(3)(f).

III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons explained above, we conclude that neither legislative immunity nor governmental function immunity prohibit the statutory actions and penalties in section 790.33(3)(c), (d), and (f). Accordingly, we approve the First District’s decision in City of Weston.

Anyone stupid enough to try passing local gun control laws in Florida now definitively faces fines up to $5,000, and damages up to $100,000.

Best of all:

public funds may not be used to defend or reimburse the unlawful conduct of any person found to have knowingly and willfully violated this section.

Violators are out of personal pocket for those bucks. Not the taxpayers, not the city’s insurance company.

 

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Florida Red Flag Law: How is it working out?

Post-Parkland, Florida passed a “red flag” law allowing the confiscation of firearms from people deemed at risk of harming themselves or others. That was in March of 2018.

Since more states are adopting such laws, and federal “red flag” legislation is being considered, I thought it would be a good idea to see if the rights-violation was “worth it” in terms of lives saved.

Recently, we learned that Florida is apparently using its “red flag” law an average of five times a day.

Five times per day. That’s 1,825 people flagged per year. People that allegedly couldn’t be stopped by conventional — due process — means. Preemptively preventing their crimes should make a noticeable dent in homicide numbers. If the “red flag” law actually works.

Let’s take a look.

The law was passed in March, so it was only in effect for nine months. With the 5/day average, that’s approximately 1,350 people who didn’t kill, who otherwise would have, in 2018 (2019 data isn’t available yet).

2017 had 1,057 homicides, of which 791 were firearms-related.

2018 had 1107 homicides, of which 836 were firearmsailerons -related. OK, to be fair, Parkland is included in that count. Let’s exclude that to see how the numbers went down:

1,090 homicides. 819 firearms-related.

The numbers went up? Even when we exclude Parkland? But… but… red flag.

Ah, perhaps all or most of those flagged individuals were suicidal. With the “red flag” law, I’m sure we’ll see a nice decrease in suicides.
2016: 3,122 (14.1/100K)
2017: 3,187 (14.1/100K)
2018: 3,552 (15.3/K)

If the usual homicide:suicide ratio of 1:2 in firearm deaths applied to the “red flagged” people, Florida should have seen a drop of 900 suicides: 2,652. Or, since approximately half are by firearm, perhaps only half of those flagged people were planning to go out that way: 3102. Not an increase of 365 to 3,552.

If “red flag” laws worked.

“Red flag” goes into effect. Homicides go up. Firearm homicides go up. Suicides go up.

They don’t work. The vast majority of firearm homicides are committed by people who aren’t supposed to have guns anyway, and who will get them; generally in an unlawful fashion.

“Red flag” laws may even make suicides worse, by aggravating already disturbed people while leaving them on the loose to die by other means, and by not Baker Acting them so they get help. If I’m correct, 2019 suicide numbers in Florida may well be even worse than the significant increase of 2018.


Added: Based on comments elsewhere, I was apparently too subtle in noting that the law didn’t work as they claimed it would. Since I’ve been noting for years that gun control laws target the demographic not committing the crimes, therefore the unspoken goal isn’t what they claimed, I didn’t bother to say it explicitly again. It’s people control.

I hereby apologize for failing to repeat myself again.

[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with ISP and web host bills. And the rabbits need feed. Click here to donate via PayPal.
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“Registered”

Back in May, I noticed something odd in a Hillsborough County (FL) Sheriffs Office press release about a man arrested for shooting his girlfriend. I mean odd beyond the guy using a loaded gun for foreplay (pro-tip: don’t do that).

“involving his registered hand gun.” While most people realize that very few states have any sort of firearms registration — and Florida is not one of them — Florida takes it a little farther with FS 790.335.

(2) Prohibitions.–No state governmental agency or local government, special district, or other political subdivision or official, agent, or employee of such state or other governmental entity or any other person, public or private, shall knowingly and willfully keep or cause to be kept any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or any list, record, or registry of the owners of those firearms.

(4) Penalties.–

(a) Any person who, or entity that, violates a provision of this section commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

In Florida, creating a firearm registry is a third degree felony good for five years in prison. So why did HCSO claim the perp’s gun was “registered”?

It took a month and a half, with multiple emails to HCSO and the Florida Attorney General’s office, but I got an answer.

Hello Carl,
That was an error on our part. It was meant to imply that the man involved had a legally purchased gun, since media was inquiring if it was stolen or not.
We realize that there is not a gun registry. Here is a link to the updated article:

https://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/About-HCSO/Press-Releases/Releases/2019/May/19-239.aspx

Thank you,

Crystal Clark
Chief Communications Officer
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office
Email: cmclark@hcso.tampa.fl.us
Office: 813-247-8094

Given that only nine (ten, sort of) states have any form of firearm registration, and Florida has a statute making the creation of a registry a felony, why in the world would it even occur to them to use “registered” to imply “lawfully owned” or simply “his”?

It will likely take another six weeks to get that answer.

[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with ISP and web host bills. And the rabbits need feed. Click here to donate via PayPal.
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Florida cops get “Stand Your Ground,” too

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that “Stand Your Ground” (SYG) self-defense protections extend to police officers, as well as civilians. I’m going to make two points about this.

1. DUH!

Police officers are persons, too. Of course they’re entitled to the same rights as any other person. That’s a no-brainer.

2. This police shooting was not a SYG situation.

SYG — despite common mischaracterizations in the anti-rights media — is not a “shoot first any time you panic” defense. All it does is two things.

The first: If you are in a situation in which you would otherwise be allowed to use defensive force, you don’t have to try to outrun the bad guy — or his speeding bullets — before defending yourself.

The second: By invoking SYG, the defender no longer has to prove his innocence. It becomes up to the prosecution to prove his guilt. For those who slept through history and government classes, the latter assumption of innocence unless proven guilty is how every other “criminal” case works. It’s embedded in the American legal system, and hearkens all the way back to English common law which is the original basis of American law.

So why do I say this wasn’t SYG?

Deputy Peter Peraza claimed he was defending himself against Jermaine McBean. McBean had a rifle across his shoulders, which Peraza claimed McBean lowered from his shoulders and aimed at him, and McBean ignored orders to drop it. He specifically claimed that there was no reason for McBean to not hear the instructions.

The facts and witnesses say otherwise.

The “rifle” was an unloaded air gun. 911 callers merely said the person was carrying it, not brandishing. At least one witness to the shooting stated that the air gun remained across McBean’s shoulders and that he never pointed it at the officer.

The claim that McBean should have been able to hear instructions — and therefore he willfully ignored them — came into question. Police noted that McBean was not wearing the earbuds which were tucked into his pocket.

And then crime scene photos came out. Immediately after the shooting, pictures show the earbuds still in the deceased’s ears. His family said he was in the habit of listening to music as he walked. But somehow, the dead man managed to remove his earbuds and place them in his pocket, conveniently supporting the officer’s version of events.

Other officers also gave conflicting and contradictory accounts of the incident. The original judge who dismissed charges simply declared the police conflicting statements were due to a difference of perspective, but the civilian just wasn’t credible.

Apparently neither were the photographs showing that someone tampered with evidence to support the police shooting. If you have to lie about why you shot, and tamper with evidence to support the lie, the shooting was probably not good.

Stand Your Ground applies to valid self defense. This wasn’t that.

 

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Florida Public Service Announcement

Via Ammoland:

Florida’s Largest Pro Gun Rally Set For Saturday, July 28 at Capitol

Three major gun-related events merge together on Saturday, July 28, 2018, at the Capitol, in Tallahassee.

The Big Pro-Gun Rally” – billed as “the largest pro-gun rally in Florida history” with top speakers from around the nation; the anti-gun “March for Our Lives”; and the no-compromise pro-Second Amendment Utah Gun Exchange “Freedom Tour”. All of these events give both gun owners and anti-gunners a chance to support their respective choices.

“The Big Pro-Gun Rally” [www.thebigprogunrally.com] takes place at the Capitol Courtyard beginning at noon with musical entertainment provided by singer/guitarist Gene Loy. Then the big guns begin to roll out at 2:00 pm, with fourteen of the top pro-gun speakers in the nation including Erich Pratt , executive director of Gun Owners of America; Hickok45 with 3.5 million YouTube followers; Mark Keith “I am the Majority” Robinson of viral YouTube fame; Kaitlin Bennett the AR10 Kent State gal; Jon Gutmacher, rally organizer and author of the Florida Firearms book with over 235,000 copies sold; Erin Palette, founder of Operation Blazing Sword, the LGBTQ pro-gun training organization; and there will also be performances by country recording artist Krystal Walters, and Josh Taylor who’s first Nashville album releases in September.

It’s an event expected to draw over two thousand attendees, and it’s free. If you’re a gun owner, it’s the place to be.

The March for Our Lives will also be meeting in Tallahassee at the same time, primarily to sign up voters for their political agenda, although the location of their event has not yet been disclosed. The Utah Gun Exchange, “Freedom Tour” which has been appearing at all March for Our Lives events to present a contrary Second Amendment viewpoint, will be joining up with “The Big Pro-Gun Rally” at the Capitol Courtyard at the July 28 rally, specifically to celebrate its Second Amendment message. It’ll be one heck of a rally, and an event that shouldn’t be missed.

[This update was provided by “The Big Pro-Gun Rally” – Jon Gutmacher, rally coordinator, and spokesperson: gutlaw–a–gmail–d–com – Phone: 407-279-1029 ]

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