Trying to fix what they call a glitch in a state gun law that went into effect in October, two Delray Beach Democrats are pushing a measure that would make it illegal to bring firearms into child care centers and public buildings.

Sen. Maria Sachs and Rep. Lori Berman filed bills that would change a new law approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott that went into effect in October. The new law, which includes civil penalties and removal from office for local officials who ignore it, forced state agencies, municipalities and counties such as Palm Beach to scrap hundreds of measures dealing with guns.

After the law went into effect, state police were also forced to reverse their policy and allow firearms to be brought into the Capitol although weapons are still barred from legislative committee meetings. The same law applies to local government meetings – guns are permitted in the building but not where officials are publicly gathered.

“The same rule should apply to the building where the meeting is taking place,” Berman said.

Under the new law, people are allowed to bring guns into child care centers but are still barred from bringing them into public schools or college and university campuses.

“If you’re not allowed to carry a gun into a school where children are five years old, I’m sure the law should extend to those who are four, or three or two,” Sachs, a former prosecutor, said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Palm Beach County Commission, which unanimously voted to support the bills (SB 1340, HB 1087), last month filed a lawsuit against Scott and others over the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and that the sanctions “are simply a form of political bullying that serves no governmental purpose” and have a “chilling effect.”

Commissioner Shelley Vana, a former state representative, stood beside Berman and Sachs at a press conference announcing the proposals this morning.

She said their effort will make Floridians, especially children, safer and called it “another major step in rectifying a tremendous wrong and helping local governments keep their citizens safe.”

The measures are unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-dominated legislature, especially in an election year. The National Rifle Association pushed the new law last year.

But Sachs said the issue is one of public safety, not partisanship.

“I know Palm Beach is a pretty progressive county…but I know that every other county will follow us,” she said.

Connecticut gunmaker Colt’s Manufacturing Co., plans to open a regional manufacturing plant in Central Florida’s Osceola County, bringing with it 63 jobs, Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday.

Scott, who has vowed to create 700,000 jobs in Florida in seven years, also used the announcement to fire-off a defense of the constitutional right to carry one of Colt’s products.

“As a supporter of new job creation and the Second Amendment, this announcement sends the clear message that Florida is both open for business and a defender of our right to bear arms,” Scott said. “My primary responsibility as governor is to be our state’s chief advocate for job creation. My personal involvement in bringing Colt to Florida demonstrates my administration’s deep commitment to rebuilding our economy.”

State officials say Florida has added about 110,000 jobs since Scott was sworn-in in January.

He’s also nuanced his campaign pledge. Scott’s dropped the claim that he would add 700,000 jobs on top of what economists had forecast to be a likely 1 million additional jobs in that time frame, based on normal growth projections.

The 63 jobs expected at the Osceola County plant are expected to pay an average salary of  just over $45,000.

Colt plans to make a $2.5 million investment in equipment and retooling a vacant building owned by Osceola County. The company is getting $250,000 in state incentives and workforce training, while the county will do building renovations and offer a break on rent for the leased structure.

 

The Florida Medical Association will represent doctors in administrative complaints involving a new law that limits what health care providers can ask patients about gun ownership.

But the association’s House of Delegates also voted late last month not to join a lawsuit challenging whether the new law is a violation of doctors’ freedom of speech.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and several doctors’ groups, including the Florida chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Practitioners and the American College of Physicians, filed the lawsuit in June against Gov. Rick Scott and his administration seeking an injunction against what they call the “Physician Gag Law,” already in effect. The groups, later joined by the Palm Beach County Medical Society and the ACLU, also want a federal judge to strike down the law as unconstitutional.

Under the law, doctors and other health care professionals will face sanctions including fines and losing their licenses if they ask patients about guns in the home without a direct belief that the inquiry is relevant to the patient’s safety or health. Pediatricians say the law keeps them from doing their jobs.

FMA general counsel Jeff Scott said the FMA’s House of Delegates rejected a proposal to join the lawsuit but later agreed to a substitute resolution calling for the FMA to help out doctors facing complaints related to the new law.

“We made kind of a policy statement that the doctor-patient relationship is important and to guide us going forward,” Scott said.

National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer, who pushed the legislation passed this session, worked with the FMA and eased off sanctions in an early proposal that would have slapped doctors with up to $5,000 fines and prison time for probing into patients’ gun ownership. Florida is the first state to pass such a law, Hammer said.

Under the amendment approved by the delegates late in July, the FMA will “legally support, to the greatest degree possible, any FMA member subject to disciplinary action based on enforcement of the Florida gun law … if the affected physician was acting based on the medical necessity and safety of the patient or others.” The organization will also be required to “actively oppose an attempt to restrict physician questions to patients or require questions of patients.”

Scott said he doesn’t think the resolution will be an issue because he doesn’t anticipate doctors breaking the law or patient complaints.

“I don’t think this will come into play,” he said.

UPDATE: Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill (HB 155) into law today.

Three groups of physicians are threatening to sue the state if Gov. Rick Scott signs into law a bill barring doctors from asking patients if they own a gun.

Lawyers representing members of the Florida chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians asked Scott to veto the measure (HB 155) because they say it restricts their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.

“Healthcare professionals throughout the state of Florida routinely speak with patients about effective methods to minimize a variety of risks to their health and safety,” attorneys Bruce Manheim Jr. and Douglas Hallward-Driemeier of the Washington-based law firm Ropes & Gray wrote to Scott last week. Scott has until June 9 to act on the law.

Doctors advise patients about safety issues associated with swimming pools, dangerous chemicals, bike helmets and car seats, they wrote, and “provide anticipatory guidance regarding the significant health risks posed by firearms in the household.”

The bill would prohibit those talks and impose severe sanctions including fines and permanent revocation of licenses.

“In sum, if CS/CS/HB 155 becomes law, it will deprive healthcare professionals throughout the state of Florida of their rights under the First Amendment to freedom of speech. In violation of the U.S. Constitution, the law would also deprive patients of potentially life-saving information regarding safety measures they can take to protect their children, families and others from injury or death resulting from unsafe storage or handling of firearms,” the lawyers wrote. “For these reasons, we intend to file a lawsuit against you and other state officials in the event this legislation becomes law.”

The NRA sent out an action alert last week asking members to pressure Scott to sign the measure.

“Doctors need to treat illness, not guns. Pediatricians and other physicians, in growing numbers, are prying into our personal lives, invading our privacy and straying from issues relating to disease and medicine by questioning children or their parents about gun ownership,” the NRA’s Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer, a former NRA president, urged in an e-mail on May 26.

With NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer sitting in the front row of the public gallery, the Florida Senate easily approved three bills loosening gun laws, including a measure banning doctors from asking their patients about gun ownership.

Two other measures are now headed to Gov. Rick Scott, an NRA member and gun owner who has said he would sign them into law.

The “open carry” bill (HB 45), watered down yesterday, would protect concealed weapons permit owners from being prosecuted if their guns are accidentally exposed. Proponents of the measure say that current law could subject the inadvertent display of weapons to being charged with a felony.

The third (HB 155) would punish local officials with a fine for passing gun laws stricter than the state’s, already prohibited under state law.

Law enforcement officials opposed the open carry bill, saying it would make their jobs more dangerous.

And barring health care providers from asking safety questions about the presence of weapons in the household could endanger the lives of children and have a chilling effect on the doctor-patient relationship, pediatricians have argued.

Firearm injury is the leading cause of death for children and teens, said Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston.

“Adolescents know about firearms. Children know about firearms and they know where they are. This Republican Party is a party of less government and this is the party that brings us more government intrusion that encroaches into the privacy of a doctor’s office and the doctor-patient relationship,” she said.

But Sen. Alan Hays, a retired dentist, said “it’s none of my business what kind of weapons if any” patients have in their homes.

“If it’s medically necessary you may inquire but otherwise stay out of the private business of your patient,” said Hays, R-Umatilla. The bill passed by a 27-10 vote.

A compromise between two big Republican backers — the Florida Medical Association and the National Rifle Association — cleared the GOP-dominated House Tuesday, setting new standards for doctors treating gun-owning patients and families.

The legislation (CS/HB 155) bars health care professionals from including in a patient’s health record information about gun ownership, unless it is relevant to medical care or the safety of others. An earlier version of the bill would have made doctors subject to 5 years in prison or $5,000 fines if they asked about a patient’s gun ownership.

The measure was approved 88-30.

“Owning guns is a fundamental right,” said Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka. “It’s not to be infringed upon by your doctor.”

During debate, several lawmakers paid homage to longtime Affiliated Sportsmen of Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer, seated in the House gallery and celebrating a birthday Tuesday. She described the timing as “coincidence.”
(more…)

Doctors would still be allowed to ask patients about guns under a compromise measure backed by the Florida Medical Association and the National Rifle Association.

The Senate Health Regulation Committee voted 8-4 to in favor of the measure (SB 432) that would allow health care providers to ask about gun ownership if they believe “this information is relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety.”

But opponents – including Sen. Mike Bennett, a Vietnam veteran – said the proposal doesn’t go far enough to protect the family members of the patients, especially in light of a growing number of veterans returning home from overseas wars with with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

“If you’re a product of it, you understand,” Bennett, R-Bradenton, said. “I’m just concerned about the wife at home the kids at home because I’ve been there, done that. I’m worried about the vet coming home with PTSD, the increases in domestic violence.”

Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson said Wednesday he thinks state lawmakers should embrace the county’s call for banning gun clips containing more than 15 rounds — especially following Arizona U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting earlier this year.

But the legislation, proposed by Rep. Lori Berman and Sen. Maria Sachs,  both Delray Beach Democrats, likely faces tall odds in a Republican Legislature filled with lawmakers elected with the backing of the National Rifle Association.

“You know, a TV commentator has said, ‘the first 10 rounds, blame the person, the next 21 rounds, you should blame the law,’” said Aronson, who joined Berman and Sachs at a Capitol news conference to promote the legislation, which has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.

House Bill 1335, which Representative Berman filed on Monday, limits the sale or transfer of high-volume ammunition devices with a capacity greater than 15 bullets.

 Giffords was critically wounded when accused assailant Jared Loughner, who is charged in January’s shooting near Tucson, used a high-capacity magazine to fire 31 shots in 15 seconds from a pistol he purchased legally. Six people were killed and 14 wounded. (more…)

Republican attorney general candidate Jeff Kottkamp is airing this ad on TV markets in Tampa and Orlando.

There are too many guns on the table to count (although we’re pretty sure that’s not how the police store their weapons anywhere in the state). We did count the sound of 10 guns being cocked in 30 seconds, which is the unofficial record so far for the 2010 political season…

Kottkamp is in Republican primary with Pam Bondi and Holly Benson.

The bill (HB 315) would bar adoption agencies from making potential parents reveal whether they have guns or ammunition in their home. It passed its first hurdle, the Florida House Health & Family Services Policy Council, on a 15-0 vote.

From The News Service of Florida:

The only significant challenge came from Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, who said she didn’t agree with Horner’s view about the motives behind the agency’s questions.

“I do object to the assumption that the question was asked for nefarious reasons,” Skidmore said. “The question was asked … to make sure that children would be safe in an environment they’d never been before and where people had not had children before, (not) to document people and register weapons.”

Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, is sponsoring the Senate version (SB 530).

So state Rep. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, is remaining in the Senate District 27 race after some aggressive flirtation last week with the Senate District 30 contest.

But will the treadwear-testing Fort Myers-to-West Palm Beach district survive the 2012 redistricting?

Read about it in this week’s Politics column. Also, catch the latest on state House musical chairs, GOP Second Amendment love and Hal Valeche’s fence-mending with the Rooney family.

A Republican hoping to unseat U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz literally set his sights on the Broward County Democrat at a shooting range, according to press reports.

Robert Lowry was one of the Southeast Broward Republican Club who went on a shooting spree at a gun range and fired assault rifles at targets including a man in a headdress holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Lowry’s target was a silhouette of a human figure with the initials “DWS” next to the head.

The target practice drew criticism from state Sen. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat, who issued a statement condemning the event.

“In a nation that has a tragic history of violence against our leaders it is unconscionable that Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s opponent would fire an assault rifle at a silhouette bearing her name,” Deutch said.

“Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz is a dedicated public servant who has earned the respect of her constituents. She deserves far more than a halfhearted apology. The Republican Party of Florida should condemn this candidate in the strongest terms. Unfortunately, this is just the latest example of outrageous vitriol in our political discourse and it needs to stop,” he concluded.