Ammo Background Check Bill Pre-Filed In Florida

Many states are gearing up for January’s legislative sessions. That means pre-filing bills for potential consideration. Not all of them will go anywhere, of course, but each of them represents something a lawmaker wants to see become law.

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That means some of them are downright troubling.

One of these troubling examples was filed in Florida.

Rep. Dan Daley, D-Coral Springs, also refiled a 2020 bill that would require the same background checks for firearms sales to be conducted for ammunition purchases.

The proposed measure, House Bill 25, is essentially Daley’s 2020 bill, which was named Jamie’s Law in memory of 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, who was among the 17 people murdered in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, filed a Senate companion to Daley’s bill in the last session. Neither received a committee hearing. No 2021 Senate companion bill had been filed through noon Tuesday.

“As a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, nothing is more important to me than preventing another tragedy like what our community experienced from ever happening again,” Daley said Monday.

“Jaime’s Law is a huge step in the right direction towards ensuring that weapons and ammunition stay out of dangerous hands,” Daley said. “It’s also common sense and does not restrict the rights of legal gun owners. If someone walks into a bar and orders a beer, a bartender is required by law to ask for their ID. Why isn’t a vendor required by law to ensure someone seeking to purchase ammunition is legally allowed to do so?”

Bringing up Parkland is downright despicable and disgusting.

Unless Daley is a complete and utter moron–something I can’t dismiss out of hand–then he knows that if the Parkland shooter could pass a background check to purchase a firearm, then he’d pass a background check to obtain ammunition for that firearm. Such a law would have had no impact on that shooting.

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Yet here he is, bringing it up, trying his damnedest to poke at still raw emotions in an effort to shove his legislative agenda down Florida’s throat.

That doesn’t touch on the fact that ammunition restrictions like he’s proposing have been a complete and utter cluster-flop when passed elsewhere. Further, there’s been no evidence that they’ve reduced crime in any way, shape, or form. In fact, we’ve seen violent crimes spike in states with such restrictions this year, the same as in states with no such restrictions. Why, it’s almost like it doesn’t matter.

Shocking, I know.

If there’s an upside, it’s that Florida isn’t remotely interested in passing a bill just to appease a grandstanding lawmaker looking to pander to a base in his district that’s still reeling from a horrible tragedy. Daley, however, has also shown himself to be the most disgusting type of lawmaker, one who will try and manipulate raw emotions in an effort to score a win, even if he knows the words he’s saying are completely untrue.

Politicians like Daley give the rest a bad name; and considering who some of the rest are, that’s really saying something.

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