Not every Democrat is vehemently anti-gun. I wish more were pro-gun, mind you, yet most aren’t. The few who are, though, deserve some consideration from gun rights supporters as a whole.
And yes, there are a few.
Florida gubernatorial candidate David Jolly isn’t one of them.
Despite that, though, he seems to believe he can rally them to his cause.
Jolly would impose far more comprehensive background checks than now exist for people acquiring firearms. He would include every transfer, not just on people purchasing guns. “It should be universal, every transaction, father to son, grandfather to grandchild.”
Jolly also wants storage and lock requirements. And he’d like to require gunowners to carry liability insurance.
“I’m for an assault weapons ban, I’m for licensing, registration, and insuring,” Jolly said. “I’m actually for broader background checks than most Democrats.”
Existing background checks “are neither comprehensive nor universal. There are carveouts all through them. It basically is a check on criminal convictions.” That leaves out far too much, he said, adding they should include “law enforcement activity around the individual that was never prosecuted and no charges were brought.”
…
Jolly says he’ll be talking to gun owners during the course of the campaign, seeking their support.
It seems like an unlikely constituency for Jolly, since he’s running for governor of the increasingly Republican red state as a Democrat. No Democrat has been elected governor of Florida in more than 30 years.
He said outreach to gun owners, along with others in rural Florida and people in the faith community, is part of building a winning coalition by talking to voters who have too often been ignored by other Democratic candidates.
What will he say to them?
“Gun owners are not the problem. Our gun laws are,” he said in an interview. “And we need to further strengthen our gun violence prevention laws. And if we do that, we will protect the children of gun owners just as we protect the children of non-gun owners,” Jolly said.
Gun owners aren’t the problem. But requiring background checks like those he’s proposing, banning so-called assault weapons, gun licensing, insurance mandates, and all the rest aren’t telling Floridians that you don’t think gun owners are the problem, though.
It’s a clear signal in the other direction.
Because I live so close to the Florida border, I follow Florida politics, and I have a number of friends in the Florida gun rights community. I can assure you that Floridians who value their right to keep and bear arms aren’t going to side with someone like Jolly.
If he really thinks they will, he’s delusional.
This isn’t a Democrat talking about just holding the line on the post-Parkland laws and nothing else. That isn’t a huge win or something gun rights advocates will rally behind, but it’s also just holding the status quo. It’s less likely to spin up the more casual gun rights supporter.
What Jolly is proposing is to turn Florida into one of the most gun-controlled states in the nation, and he’s actually suggesting that he’s going to get gun rights supporters behind him?
Even the pro-gun Democrats I know down there–all one of them, admittedly–are unlikely to rally behind someone like that.
Of course, the upside is that even if Jolly somehow won, there’s unlikely to be enough of a switch in the legislature to result in a Democratic supermajority, unlike the current Republican one.
While that GOP supermajority isn’t providing pro-gun wins, it’s incredibly unlikely they’re going to go along with literally any of this anti-gun nonsense, either.
Jolly is absolutely off his rocker if he actually thinks this is a winning strategy.
Read the full article here
