PA Bill Number: SB1198
Title: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and ...
Description: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and .. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Last Action Date: May 17, 2024
Chan Lowe: Docs vs. Glocks the law of the land :: 07/28/2014
Thank you, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, due to your two-to-one ruling, there are two things to which Florida doctors have no right under the First Amendment: to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater, and to ask any questions to a patient about gun ownership.
Congratulations, Marion Hammer and the NRA. Your bought-and-paid-for Florida Legislature passed the misbegotten “Docs vs. Glocks” law, which allows for a $10,000 fine to a doctor or the loss of his or her medical license for even bringing the subject up. The NRA likes to say that it’s protecting Americans’ liberties. Well, they just trashed one of them, and it’s probably the most important one of all. The good news is that gun owners will have one less precious right they need to defend from their overweening government, because they just handed it over to the tyrants without firing a shot.
You have to wonder what freedom of speech has to do with a well-regulated militia’s right to bear arms, anyway, or how it might infringe on it. Come to think of it, the NRA doesn’t have anything to do with a well-regulated militia’s right to bear arms, either. Maybe the stonemason who inscribed the second half of the Second Amendment on the front of their Washington headquarters was getting paid by the letter, because he left off the “militia” part. Oh well, who are we to question — particularly if they want to slap a fine on us?
I’m not sure it will make that much of a difference if doctors can’t ask patients if they have guns in the home. Such a patient isn’t going to be swayed by a doctor or anyone else. Nevertheless, it sets an astounding precedent, when you consider that the Supreme Court even ruled that people have a right under the First Amendment to burn the American Flag. In effect, that means that a firearm enjoys — legally at least — more protection in Florida than the Stars and Stripes.
Which is as it should be. You won’t get much respect if you try to stand your ground by flapping a flag in somebody’s face.
