There are two efforts to let Florida voters decide whether or not to ban assault style weapons.
One campaign is being led by South Florida Congressman Ted Deutch. He wants to get a measure on the 2020 ballot that would restrict the sale of AR-15 style rifles.
Getting a referendum on the 2020 ballot to ban assault style weapons would require 766,200 signatures from registered Florida voters. The measure would then need to pass by at least 60 percent.
A Florida Atlantic University poll conducted in the weeks after the Parkland shooting found 69 percent of Floridians in support of a ban of assault-style rifles.
While the congressman’s effort has some big names behind it- there’s another effort- this one backed by a South Florida businessamn.
Donald Cleveland, who is president of a commercial insurance firm, is slightly ahead in the process. The state Division of Elections already approved the draft of his ballot initiative to ban military-style weapons.
After the Parkland shooting, Cleveland formed the Stop the Killing Committee and launched a website (http://www.stopthekilling.us/) to start gathering signatures needed to get the proposal on the ballot.
His measure would prohibit civilians from owning any gun that holds more than seven rounds of ammunition. That would ban not only AR-15-style rifles but also many popular handguns. (Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-gun-ban-amendment-20180503-story.html) He joins us now.
Philanthropist, former banker and a millionaire many times over- David Starz is the latest person to enter the Tampa mayor’s race. The race is not until March 2019 but it’s already drawn a crowded field to replace Bob Buckhorn who is term limited. Tampa is the area’s largest city and the mayor is often considered not just a leader of the city but of the region.
So far Tampa council members harry Cohen and Mike Suarez former Hillsborough county commissioner Ed Turanchik, businessman Topher Morrison and former police chief Jane Castor are all running. Now Straz will make a run for mayor- his first run for elected office. He says he’s not a politician and he thinks handling the city budget is the number one issue. He promises to limit campaign donations to $500. But if he has to- he has deep enough pockets to self-fund. And although he voted for Donald Trump he says he identifies now more with the Democratic Party.
I spoke with Straz earlier this week..
For WMNF’s Radioactivity I’m Rob lorei.
5-11-18
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It took one mass shooting to get Australians to act. They imposed a ban on assault weapons. Guess what? Their country didn’t collapse in chaos and disarray. The land of the great outback and Crocodile Dundee still enjoys hunting and self-defense. Vote. Register to vote, and then vote.
Knives are too sharp and filing them down is solution to soaring violent crime, judge says
Knives are too sharp, the judge said – pictured are knives that have been seized by police
Credit:
Lewis Whyld/PA
Joel Adams
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/27/knives-sharp-filing-solution-soaring-violent-crime-judge-says/
27 May 2018 • 8:52pm
A judge
has proposed a nationwide programme to file down the points of kitchen
knives as a solution to the country’s soaring knife crime epidemic.
Last week in his valedictory address, retiring Luton Crown Court
Judge Nic Madge spoke of his concern that carrying a knife had become
routine in some circles and called on the Government to ban the sale of
large pointed kitchen knives.
Latest figures show stabbing deaths among teenagers and young adults
have reached the highest level for eight years, and knife crime overall
rose 22 per cent in 2017.
In the past two months, he said, there have been 77 knife-related incidents in Bedfordshire, including three killings.
Luton Crown Court Judge Nic Madge said he was concerned that carrying a knife had become routine in some circles
Credit:
sbna
Judge
Madge told the assembled judges, barristers and court staff: “These
offences often seem motiveless – one boy was stabbed because he had an
argument a couple of years before at his junior school.”
He said laws designed to reduce the availability of weapons to young
would-be offenders had had “almost no effect”, since the vast majority
had merely taken knives from a cutlery drawer.
He said: “A few of the blades carried by youths are so called ‘Rambo
knives’ or samurai swords. They though are a very small minority.
“The reason why these measures have little effect is that the vast
majority of knives carried by youths are ordinary kitchen knives. Every
kitchen contains lethal knives which are potential murder weapons.
Knife possession has soared in the last four years
“Accordingly, it is very easy for any youth who wants to obtain a
knife to take it from the kitchen drawer in his home or in the home of
one of his friends.”
As a result – said the judge –
the most common knife a youth will take out is eight to ten inches, long
and pointed, from his mother’s cutlery tray.
He asked: “But why we do need eight-inch or ten-inch kitchen knives with points?
“Butchers and fishmongers do, but how often, if at all, does a
domestic chef use the point of an eight-inch or ten-inch knife? Rarely,
if at all.”
“Acknowledging that any blade could cause injury, the judge pointed out “slash wounds are rarely fatal.”
So, he said: “I would urge all those with any role in relation to
knives – manufacturers, shops, the police, local authorities, the
government – to consider preventing the sale of long pointed knives,
except in rare, defined, circumstances, and replacing such knives with
rounded ends.
“It might even be that the police could organise a programme whereby
the owners of kitchen knives, which have been properly and lawfully
bought for culinary purposes, could be taken somewhere to be modified,
with the points being ground down into rounded ends,” he said.
Office
for National statistics figures published in February revealed 215 fatal
stabbings had been recorded by police in the 12 months to March 2017.
This was on par with the previous year’s 212 stabbing deaths but a marked increase on the 186 in the year to March 2015.
The latest figures show ten 16 or 17 year olds lost their lives in
the year to March 2017, as well as 51 people aged between 18 and 24. The
combined total is the highest since 2008/9.
In the first 100 days of 2018, 53 people were killed in the capital alone, many of them victims of knife crime.
New tougher sentencing guidelines for knife crime were introduced in
March, with gang membership or carrying a concealed weapon both
identified as aggravating factors which can increase a jail term handed
down for a knife offence.
The Sentencing council said the reforms were intended to “reflect
Parliament’s concern about the social problem of offenders carrying
knives.”