Florida Governor Rick Scott Just Says "NO" To Tampa Gun Ban

Florida Republican Governor, Rick Scott responded to Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn's letter requesting him to put the Florida Concealed Weapon Permits in Tampa "on hold" during the Republican National Convention that will take place in Tampa. Mayor Buckhorn wanted an Executive Order from Scott that would prohibit transportation of firearms in downtown Tampa during the Convention. 


Tampa's Mayor also wanted a "gun free zone" adjacent to the  "Safe Zone" area where the Secret Service has already banned firearms. In a letter that will make anti firearms rights groups apoplectic, Scott wrote to the Mayor that his request amounted to a disarming of citizens "in all of downtown Tampa." That would include areas across the river and distant from the Convention Center. 


Scott's letter then quoted the pesky Second Amendment of the US Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Florida Constitution. He wrote, "These provisions guarantee that the government may not infringe the peoples' right to keep and bear arms." He also reminded the City fathers that the United States Supreme Court has explained that those rights have real force, and that government bans on firearms are generally impermissible. He added that while the government can enforce longstanding prohibitions on carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, an absolute ban on possession in entire neighborhoods and regions "would surely violate the Second Amendment."


While the Governor shared the concern of "violent anti-government protests or civil unrest," and the "threat of substantial injury or harm to Florida residents and visitors to the state," it wasn't clear to him how disarming law abiding citizens would better protect them from dangers and threats from those who would "flout the law." The Governor added that "It is at just such times that the Constitutional right to self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach." 


The Governor was confident that the many Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies that were focused on the RNC would adequately protect Floridians and visitors without sweeping infringements on "our most sacred constitutional traditions." He closed the letter admonishing the Mayor by saying, "We have had political conventions in this country since the dawn of the country, They are an essential means of furthering our constitutional rights to free speech and to vote. Our fundamental right to keep and bear arms has coexisted with those freedoms for just as long, and I see no reason to depart from that tradition this year."