Why the NRA Stumbled in Gun-Crazed Florida: Francis Wilkinson
By Francis Wilkinson
(Bloomberg View) -- President Donald Trump made his
predictable retreat from conflict with the National Rifle
Association this week. He had promised to take on the gun lobby
amid loose talk of better background checks and an increase in
the age limit for purchasing firearms. But, to no one's
surprise, he quickly backed down, after a White House visit from
the NRA.
Yes, once again, the familiar cycle of gun violence and
promises of action yielded to capitulation. Yet this time
something was different. Not in Washington, but in Florida,
where last week gun-safety activists proved that they could out-
muscle the NRA not just in blue states, or on the most extreme
proposals in red states, but on central issues on the NRA?s home
court.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, a previously reliable devotee
of the NRA, with an A+ rating from the group, signed legislation
raising the age to purchase all firearms from 18 to 21. In
addition, the law bans the sale and possession of bump stocks,
which enable semi-automatic rifles to mimic automatic weapons.
It imposes a three-day waiting period on most long-gun
purchases. It establishes a red-flag process to empower local
law-enforcement officials to petition a court to remove guns
from an individual showing warning signs of violence.
Not everyone from the gun-regulation side recognized the
seismic victory. Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, a Democratic
candidate for governor, was disappointed that the legislature
failed to pass an assault-weapons ban and universal background
checks. He said the law "falls short of the public demands set
by the majority of Floridians and the student survivors" of the
Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school.
So it does, and in a rational world, Levine?s
disappointment would be justified. But gun politics is a
function of raw power, not reason. The gun regulation forces
have never lacked strong arguments. What they?ve lacked is a
large number of people willing to invest their time and energy
and votes in demanding safer regulation.
Florida, where students and activists bore down on the
Legislature and last week won very real concessions, is the most
powerful evidence that the cavalry may finally be saddling up.
The state is home to some of the most depraved, legally
sanctioned gunplay in America. A breathtaking 2012 series by the
Tampa Bay Times on the state?s Stand Your Ground law depicted
dozens of shootings in which the killer went free merely by
claiming, in full accord with the law, that he felt ?threatened?
in some way before opening fire.
?One man killed two unarmed people and walked out of jail,?
the paper reported. ?Another shot a man as he lay on the ground.
Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In
nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants
initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their
victim ? and still went free.?
It was in Florida that George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon
Martin in 2012 as the unarmed teenager was walking home.
Zimmerman, who also allegedly threatened both his wife and
girlfriend with a gun, walked free. Later, he listed for sale
the weapon he used to kill Martin, a Kel-Tec PF-9 handgun. ?I am
honored and humbled to announce the sale of an American Firearm
Icon," he wrote.
In Florida, the NRA has reigned supreme, and human life has
been commensurately devalued. The sight of Republicans in
Tallahassee turning on the gun lobby must?ve been quite a shock
at NRA headquarters, which vigorously opposed the new law and
has filed what appears to be a symbolic lawsuit against the age
limit.
The NRA has weathered many previous threats, of course. The
failure of Congress to correct even the most obvious and
egregious flaw in U.S. gun regulation, the background check
loophole, which enables pretty much anyone who wants to evade a
background check to do so, has been the high-water mark of
cynicism since even before the 2012 massacre of schoolchildren
and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut.
That federal loophole has no legal, moral, civic,
intellectual or other rationale. The NRA makes no argument in
its behalf. The loophole exists simply because the NRA demands
it.
The NRA?s success depends on such displays of political
dominance, not on the Second Amendment or legal arguments about
its purview. As its aging, white, male membership grows more
fearful in a changing nation, the group has come to view
democratic debate as a losing proposition.
"We are locked in a struggle with powerful forces in this
country who will do anything to destroy the Second Amendment,?
Richard Venola, a former editor of Guns & Ammo, told the New
York Times in 2014. ?The time for ceding some rational points is
gone."
To get through a crisis, the NRA will feign interest in
reforms. ?If we want to prevent future atrocities, we must look
for solutions that keep guns out of the hands of those who are a
danger to themselves or others, while protecting the rights of
law-abiding Americans," said Chris W. Cox, executive director of
the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action.
But the NRA resolutely opposes any action to restrict
convenient access to military-grade firepower by those who are a
danger to themselves and others. The group has previously
described red-flag laws to restrict access by such people as a
?campaign of shame against gun owners.?
While blue states continue to adopt an aggressive regime of
gun regulation, in Washington and red states neither court-
sanctioned restrictions on gun rights, nor the overwhelming
evidence that more guns and fewer restrictions lead to more
shootings, has been a match for the NRA. But in Florida last
week, activists overpowered their nemesis.
The Florida law is far from a comprehensive attack on gun
violence. But it?s a key advance in its prerequisite: a
comprehensive attack on the gun lobby.