advertisement

SSN on Facebook SSN on Twitter SSN on YouTube RSS Feed

15 Comments
Politics

Backroom Briefing: Gun Rights Groups Fire Back

March 9, 2017 - 6:00pm

National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer said it's too early to declare gun-related bills dead after an influential Miami senator this week appeared to shoot down a number of high-profile proposals.

"Everything is alive until it is killed by a vote of a committee or on the floor," Hammer, a past president of the NRA, said in an email Wednesday. "My job is not to wring my hands and whine, my job is to work hard for law-abiding gun owners and never quit. That's what I intend to do."

A day earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee narrowly approved a bill that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to store firearms with security officers at courthouses.

But committee member Anitere Flores, a Miami Republican who is a top lieutenant to Senate President Joe Negron, said she could not support a long list of gun-related measures filed by Judiciary Chairman Greg Steube. Flores cast the deciding vote to approve the courthouse bill.

"He and I do not see eye to eye on probably any of the other gun bills," Flores said. "I do not support having guns on campus. I do not support having guns in airports. I don't support having guns in school zones. I don't support those things."

Flores said Wednesday that no one should be surprised by her stance.

Last July, she joined 12 Democrats on the losing side of a vote to hold a special session on gun regulations after the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

"We're elected to represent the people who vote for us," Flores said Wednesday. "Maybe Sen. Steube will bring up some of the other bills and we'll have a discussion and we'll see the merits of any individual issue."

Flores' stance is important, at least in part, because Steube's committee is comprised of five Republicans and four Democrats.

The committee was a roadblock for gun bills during the past two sessions, and Second Amendment advocates expected to see greater gains this year with Steube becoming chairman.

Steube, noting that the committee approved the courthouse bill Tuesday and earlier advanced a proposal related to the "stand-your-ground" self-defense law, said Tuesday, "I certainly think we're moving in a direction that I would like to see us move."

Flores said she hadn't heard from Hammer, but there has been "some social media, Twitter, people and that kind of thing."

Hammer sent out a notice Wednesday to members of the NRA and Unified Sportsmen of Florida, under the title "Florida Report: Sen. Anitere Flores Turns on Law-abiding Gun Owners."

"I cannot tell you why Sen. Flores suddenly turned on law-abiding gun owners because I do not know. (Until yesterday she had a 100% rating with NRA and USF),” Hammer wrote.

The Second Amendment-rights group Florida Carry went further, calling Flores a "turncoat" who unleashed "an anti-gun diatribe" against the pro-gun bills in the Senate, and questioning if she was speaking for herself or Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart.

NEW REDISTRICTING RULES?

The Senate continued Thursday pushing forward with a little-noticed bill that would govern what happens if a court has to redraw legislative or congressional districts under the anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts standards approved by voters in 2010.

The proposal (SB 352) passed the Senate Rules Committee on a party-lin, 7-3 vote, which clears it to go to the Senate floor.

Sen. Travis Hutson, an Elkton Republican sponsoring the bill, said it is mostly aimed at encouraging the courts to be more open in how they draw maps once a plan approved by the Legislature has been struck down.

Under the measure, the court would be encouraged --- but not required --- to hold public hearings on the maps, keep minutes at closed meetings, and preserve emails and other documents concerning the drawing of court plans.

“I think the voters and the Legislature need a little bit more transparency so that we can be more certain on how to draw the maps going forward,” Hutson told the Senate Rules Committee.

Voting-rights organizations that got courts to overturn Senate and congressional maps drawn by lawmakers in 2012 are opposed to the bill, which also specifies when court-drawn maps would take effect based on how soon the next election is coming up.

TWEET OF THE WEEK: "@FLGovScott has ruined the `Let's Get to Work' slogan for me forever." --- Florida Times-Union bureau chief Tia Mitchell (@TIAreports), after Scott worked the slogan into a mention of his daughter being pregnant during Tuesday's "State of the State" address.

Comments

I believe Senate President Negron knew Anitere Flores would flip against us - that's why he appointed her to her position in the Senate. Negron is just doing the bidding of RINO Governor Rick Scott to keep open carry and campus carry off his desk. If Sen. Negron proves me wrong by overruling Flores, then I will apologize. So far, Negron is content to let the bills die. Just political games played to keep robbing us of our rights.

Civil War is coming sooner or later. When it does, we must arrest every treasonous politician and judge and politician that ever stood against the Constitution in ALL areas, but especially the one that "shall not be infringed" which FORBIDS government from infringing on the right to keep and bear ALL arms suitable to militias. During and even after the civil war (sorry, no one can predict when--it is only obvious that it WILL occur) they must be captured, tried, and for those found guilty--well the proper punishment for treason is hanging.

Far to tame of an article, this one is more better: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/03/robert-farago/florida-republican-gun-rights-turncoat-flores-motivation-revealed/

I emailed and wrote to both of her offices to let her know that I will not be voting for her in the future. I will also make sure I tell everyone I know to do the same.. Yes that's right "Anitere Diaz de la Portilla", and like him, she will loose her job after the next election. I wonder how much money she is getting from Bloomberg?

When she's up for re-election her republican opponent needs to remind voters every day how she failed to support the the majority of the people who had her elected.

I voted for her before. I won't again.

Hopefully, just perhaps this is the END of her political careet.........more likely tho is that she'll just change party identification and accurately reflect what she really is. Notably tho, that "A" rating she carried SHOULD have been closely re-examined when she engaged in the pulse shooting followup................from all appearances it was not!

Marxists who infect our government plus the media prostitutes who protect them will gleefully lie, falsify, fabricate, slander, libel, deceive, delude, bribe, and treasonably betray the free citizens of the United States into becoming an unarmed population. Unarmed populations have been treated as slaves and chattel since the dawn of history. The Second Amendment foes lying about gun control - Firearms are our constitutionally mandated safeguard against tyranny by a powerful federal government. Only dictators, tyrants, despots, totalitarians, and those who want to control and ultimately to enslave you support gun control. No matter what any president, senator, congressman, or hard-left mainstream media hookers tell you concerning the statist utopian fantasy of safety and security through further gun control: They are lying. If their lips are moving, they are lying about gun control. These despots truly hate America.. These tyrants hate freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, and private property. But the reality is that our citizens’ ownership of firearms serves as a concrete deterrent against despotism. They are demanding to hold the absolute power of life and death over you and your family. Ask the six million Jews, and the other five million murdered martyrs who perished in the Nazi death camps, how being disarmed by a powerful tyranny ended any chances of fighting back. Ask the murdered martyrs of the Warsaw Ghetto about gun control. Their single agenda is to control you after you are disarmed. When the people who want to control you hold the absolute power of life and death over your family, you have been enslaved. Will we stand our ground, maintaining our constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights, fighting those who would enslave us? American Thinker

Rich What you have so truthfully written should be read by the left wing zealots here in CT. May I have permission to use your written editorial and of course site your name as the author. Thank you Neal

Amen! All Of Our Constitutional Rights Freedoms, Including The First Amendment, The Right To Free Speech And Freedom Of Religion And The Second Amendment, The Right To Bear Arms, Must Be Protected And Supported At All Cost, By All Of Our Government, Local And National, And All Judges! Our Constitution Is The Law Of America, That Everyone In America Must Follow And Live By!

AMEN

She's committing felonies by deleting comments on her face book page and banning people who are being respectful yet voicing their opposition. I intend to sue her. This is an impeachable offense.

At least pass the bill that made the accidental or brief show of a firearm while concealed non-criminal for CCW holders. That absolutely makes sense for everyone. I support open carry, just because the places where they have it have low or no crime. Gun free zones like Chicago are the murder capitals of the world, because only the criminals have guns, illegally, but its criminals. You have to remember, open carry members would still have to be CCW holders. In this state, CCW holders are more law abiding than even police officers and that is a fact, not just something that sounds good...

Did you say her name was 'Anitere Diaz de la Portilla'?

Hopefully she shares the same fate next time she has to answer to the voters

Comments are now closed.

politics
advertisement
advertisement
Live streaming of WBOB Talk Radio, a Sunshine State News Radio Partner.

advertisement