Are you by any chance a lawyer? Not that you’re not entitled to your opinion in any case.
Not, i’m not a lawyer.
I’m simply making an analysis based on a historical understanding of what constitutes a polling place and a legislative proceeding. Also, the statute cited does not actually say “legislative proceedings,” it says:
It would be hard to argue that the RNC is a meeting or a committee of the Florida legislature. Or of the national legislature, for that matter.
That leaves us only with the possibility that it is a polling place. I guess that the fact that the delegates will be voting on the Republican Presidential nominee might make it a polling place of sorts, but i’d be very surprised if that is what the law means. By that definition, any business or academic organization that meets in a Florida hotel to decide its next President or Treasurer would be a polling place. Seems rather unlikely.
Here is the text of the law, as stated by the Florida state government. Section (12) specifies where a gun may not be carried, and it the list does not include private businesses, except for private schools, drinking establishments, and to sports events.
I missed another place where a gin can’t be carried: airports. There is also no provision for any individual to bar gun possessors from their property by virtue of a posted sign.
I agree that a home owner might legitimately demand anyone leave for pretty much any reason, but the gun possessor is under no obligation to inform the owner that they’re carrying, and there is no legal penalty to the gun owner if “caught” with the gun.
And I would also agree that an employer can probably fire an employee for bringing a gun to work, but they can’t call the cops on them or get their license revoked. There’s no criminal penalty.
I don’t think the exemption for handguns is the problem. I think the ban(s) from which handguns are being exempted is the problem. I think the New York Times is so eager to bash the gun rights lobby that they’re missing just how bizarre and draconian are the restrictions the Tampa city government is seeking to impose.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the rules ban people from carrying water guns and “pieces of wood” in the entire city of Tampa. I mean, if we allow somebody to get within twelve miles of the Republican National Convention with a Super Soaker[sup]TM[/sup], God only knows what might happen. (The temporary ban list also includes “explosives”–I guess if the RNC isn’t in town it’s perfectly legal to wander around Tampa with a few sticks of dynamite in your pocket???)
Then there is going to be some sort of “Clean Zone”, which sounds like something out of a bad science fiction movie. Within the “Clean Zone” (which per the Tampa Bay Times will cover “downtown, Ybor City, the Channel District, parts of some nearby neighborhoods, plus Harbour Island and Davis Islands”) the list of banned items includes (among other things) “tape or string longer than 6 inches” and “light bulbs”, along with (I presume) “genetically modified subhumanoids from the Outer Zones and the Unreclaimed Areas”.
There’s also going to be some sort of “protest area” (within the “Clean Zone” I guess), with yet more restrictions. 'Cause, hey, screw the First Amendment (and maybe the Fourth? No word on how all these numerous restrictions on water guns and “tape or string longer than 6 inches” are going to be enforced. Random cavity searches? I dunno.)
I think the city is banning all the other junk (masks are one, according to Rachel Maddow) because they want to appear eager to be security conscious but are prohibited from banning the single most blatantly obvious items that would present a threat – guns.
It’s just ridiculous. If some political bigwig attending the convention gets shot, I predict that the party won’t pick a venue with a state law like Florida’s again. How many states would that leave? Or maybe they would do if they could get the state legislature to write up something to give political convention cities an exemption to the regular laws while the political convention was in town.
Maybe they should ban bullets in the “clean zone.”
In other words, yet more Security Theater. Just what this country needs.
Most states nowadays have “shall issue” concealed carry laws. Most states also have firearms pre-emption, under which only the state legislature can regulate guns, and counties and municipalities are not allowed to do so (with narrow exemptions for stuff like municipal ordinances against actually firing off weapons inside city limits without a damned good reason). So, actually, in very few (if any) states can the local authorities ban firearms in the entire city in the name of “security” for a political convention.
Given that keeping and bearing arms is a Constitutionally-protected right, I don’t think banning handguns from the entire city is an appropriate thing to do. As both the New York and Tampa Bay Times note, the Secret Service will not be permitting weapons inside the actual convention hall. There is no justification for sweeping restrictions on ordinary people miles away from the convention in the name of protecting political bigwigs.
I would say that the immediate proximity of the convention hall should be fair game, as well as the major hotels that will be housing most of the political bigwigs.
Ban all kinds of shit from inside the convention hall, fine. Things that could harm the convention from outside the building–rocket launchers and truck bombs and so on–are typically already illegal, regardless of whether a political convention is in town.
As for the rest of it, fuck 'em. The POTUS gets to walk around in a 24/7 portable security bubble, and I guess that’s probably inevitable. Maybe the Veep, too. I think the rest of the “political bigwigs” are just going to have live with the threat of being bonked on the head with a stick or squirted with a water gun, the same as the rest of us. No special “Clean Zone” security bubbles for every political convention delegate. I don’t want to wind up in a society where you could be liable to getting strip-searched because you happened to wander into a shopping mall at the same time as some state senator or justice of the peace.
Half the elected Federal government will be there, and probably half the elected state government types will be there too. They deserve…
Eh, fuck 'em. You’re right.
I do NOT want to live in a society where they get what they deserve.
It’d make a Zombie Apocalypse look like Teletubbie Land.
It’s going to be interesting to see how they’re going to enforce this. This bans hoodies with drawstrings, for example. What about camera straps? Headphone cords? Hell, shoelaces?
Wearing one of those is a security threat of itself to a Republican.
The only people allowed in will be naked. Gun and holster are optional accessories.
I’m amazed that anyone would support a city wide gun ban because a political convention is in town. What other rights should the Tampa City Council be able to trample on because the GOP is in town? Shut down the newspapers?
I haven’t seen anyone posting here calling for a gun ban.
The reason this regulation is noteworthy is because it is so mockable. If you are ostensibly crafting a safety measure for the convention, it is just silly to ban squirt guns but not handguns. No one here is supporting a gun ban.
I don’t know about anyone posting here, but the New York Times thinks the whole thing is “sensible”, except for the part about not banning guns too:
So the Times thinks banning water pistols is “sensible”–not inside the convention hall itself, but in the entire city. In Florida. In August. (The Times says “downtown area” but according to the other Times the water pistol ban would cover the entire city.) The only thing the New York Times sees wrong with the city’s “security precautions” is that they don’t also include banning real guns.
Maybe suspending the first amendment would be good too and they could sensibly shut down the New York Times for a while. After all, wouldn’t want any criticism of the Republicans, would we? Even adequately reporting what they say might incense some people.
Back in 2004 I worked in NYC and commuted home through Penn Station which shares a block with Madison Square Garden, the site of the GOP convention that year. Getting into my normal entrance took about 10 extra minutes each night. The closer I got to it (I walked about 17 blocks) the more I felt like Frodo entering Mordor. The Orcs wore heavy Kevlar and face shields.
Protestors were restricted to so-called “free speech zones” 10 to 15 blocks away.
Squirt guns, I suppose, could be filled with more dangerous liquids than water. If I’m running the police in Tampa, and I can’t prevent all fights, then I don’t want pro and anti protestors fighting with anything more dangerous than their fists. So the restrictions make some degree of sense.
(The best approach for Tampa natives would be to go on vacation that week. Something I was too busy to do in 2004.)