As former governor Charlie Crist continues to reload his political views with his newfound Democratic Party affiliation, the Republican Party of Florida and National Rifle Association have fired verbal buckshot into his new stance on gun rights.
Crist, who was often rated highly by the NRA during his run up the ladder of state elected offices, told the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday that some restrictions are needed in light of the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
"What do you need a 30-clip magazine for? Not to go hunting deer. I can tell you that because I hunt deer," Crist told the Times.
With Crist expected to challenge Gov. Rick Scott in 2014, and as a poll was out Wednesday that gave Crist better favorability ratings than the incumbent, the RPOF quickly unholstered a list of Crist-isms on gun rights,
From telling the then-St. Petersburg Times in 1994 that he was a very strong defender of the Second Amendment, to his opposition on assault weapons in 1998 to supporting the Bring Your Gun to Work bill in 2008.
If this latest move by Crist doesn't take the cake for crass political opportunism, we don't know what does, the RPOF stated in its latest installment of Two faces of Charlie Crist.
Meanwhile, the NRA , which often gave Crist stellar marks for his gun rights advocacy, wasnt surprised he is now joining the gun ban chant of anti-gun Democrats.
Recently, Charlie Crist has been systematically turning his back on many things in which he has claimed to believe, NRA President Marion Hammer told the Miami Herald.
He currently claims to be a deer hunter. I suspect that the only thing he has actually ever hunted is political office."
Scott, a gun rights supporter, has directed Floridas public schools to review their decade-old emergency procedures and further devise means to make campuses safer.
If somebody has an idea on how we can improve things, I want to hear them, Scott said Wednesday while on WNDB 1150 AM in Daytona Beach.
We have to make sure our schools are safe places for our kids, and our parents need to know that.
He would tell Newsmax during an interview on Wednesday he may be open to the suggestion by state Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, to end the state ban on guns in schools.
Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 215-9889.
