[background]
The antigun lobby fired back... One citizen wrote, "Someone comes into my business to complain about my service. Shoot 'em." ... Democratic representative Ari Abraham Porth of Coral Springs warned that now a Floridian could... shoot someone who pushes him out of line in a Publix supermarket. Miami police chief John Timoney warned that Floridians would be shooting each other over... Halloween trick-or-treat misunderstandings. ...
The same fears were expressed by the antigun lobby in 1987 when Florida passed its concealed-weapons law... Almost 900,000 Floridians have been issued carry permits since 1987. During that period firearm-related incidents decreased.
[data from Gary Kleck]
[Info on Dennis Baxley, the bill's sponsor]
...I tell [Baxley] about my experience with guns in Florida. When my wife and I moved into a seedy neighborhood in 1992, our cars were repeatedly broken into... One officer said to me, "Only an ******* would live in this neighborhood without a gun." That afternoon we went to the Dixie Gun Range, fired off a few hundred rounds, bought two nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistols, took an authorized gun course, were fingerprinted and six weeks later received our concealed-carry permits in the mail...
...
:barf: