In Florida, there’s a bit of a squabble going on over concealed carry permits. It’s something we’ve talked about before here at Bearing Arms. It’s an issue that needs to be addressed, to be sure.
However, it’s not the only issue that needs to be addressed in the state apparently. There seems to be an issue getting people their unemployment checks as well.
Now, let’s face it, when people aren’t able to work because of government decrees, unemployment checks are a big deal. Especially with so many of them.
Yet it seems for some in the Sunshine State, that is the only issue that matters and screw your rights.
As of Friday, the state’s own numbers revealed that of the 701,740 confirmed unique claims submitted, only 153,788 — or 21.9 percent — have been paid.
And that’s the friendliest metric for the state. There have actually been more than 1.8 million claims made. While many of them may be duplicates, it’s very likely that Florida’s payout is far worse than the reported 21.9 percent.
But enough about unemployment, let’s talk about the real emergency, the one that has prompted Florida’s Attorney Gen. Ashley Moody to warn of a lawsuit against her fellow cabinet member, Florida Secretary of Agriculture Nikki Fried.
Concealed handgun permits. Yes, the COVID-19 outbreak has affected the way Florida doles out concealed weapons permits.
I know what you’re thinking. Why would people need concealed handguns during a shelter-at-home period?
I’m guessing it has something to do with standing your ground against family members for the TV remote.
Now, I’m going to grant that the unemployment check situation is a real problem. Again, these are people who can’t work because the government won’t let them. Rightly or wrongly is irrelevant. They can’t go back to work or even look for a new job right now, and there are a lot of them.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t any other problems worth discussing. Neither the secretary of agriculture and the attorney general is involved with the process to deal with unemployment checks in the state. Those fall outside of their authority and, as such, have nothing to do with the issue. Especially when the system is primarily just overloaded because it was never meant to handle this many claims all of a sudden.
They both have a role to play on concealed carry permits, however.
And it seems that’s a problem because guns are icky.
The writer, Frank Cerabino, seems to think that the state can only focus on one issue at a time. Worse than that, though, is to pretend that Floridians simply don’t need concealed carry permits during a stay-at-home order.
Cerabino is displaying the typical ivory tower, privileged thinking that drives so much of the gun control crowd in the United States. He assumes that because there’s a stay-at-home order everyone has to stay at home. He forgets there are thousands of Floridians who are working essential jobs throughout the state. That includes people delivering food who have long been a favorite target of criminals. He forgets that there are nurses working long hours in hospitals and grocery store workers walking in empty parking lots late at night. There are a lot of people in the state still vulnerable to predators.
But because Cerabino doesn’t have to deal with that personally, it simply doesn’t exist.
He’s also ignoring the fact that many people have to go out and do their own grocery shopping, meaning there’s always the possibility of a violent encounter with someone as well. Hell, these days the violence could be over something as ridiculous as toilet paper, for crying out loud.
Again, he likely doesn’t have to deal with it, so why would anyone else. Let them eat cake, am I right?
Except, Floridians shouldn’t have to.
You see, another point Cerabino forgets is that while unemployment checks are important, especially when the government is telling people they can’t work, unemployment isn’t a fundamental, constitutionally-protected right.
