Florida Mayors SUE For Stricter Gun Control Laws

A group of at least 10 Florida mayors are taking gun control into their own hands and they've launched a lawsuit against the state so they can enact tougher gun control laws in their cities. Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss this.

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A group of at least 10 Florida mayors are taking gun control into their own hands and they've launched a lawsuit against the state so they can enact tougher gun control laws in their cities. I love this. I mean, what people don't understand, it's not just Florida where this occurred, but you have legislation in Florida that says that a city official, a mayor, a county official, a city official, commissioned, they can't pass any kind of laws that impair the sale of guns. Now, most people don't ... I mean, it sounds so insane that you go, like, "You could not have stated that right." That is the law and what it is, it's not just with guns. They're trying to make it to where the state can preempt any activity on a local level. There may be a polluter that comes into a local city or a county, and the city or the county says, "You know, we really don't like what this polluter's doing, and we're going to have ordinances that take care of what that polluter is doing."

There's all kinds of iterations of that, but this particular one, this guy, and I hope he's listening to us right now, his name is Hammer. Hammer, you're an idiot. We like to call an idiot. We call it our idiot moment on programs like this. You are an idiot. What Hammer did was, Hammer's the one, he was the super lobbyist who convinced all of these legislators, what year was it, 2000 ...

2011.

2011, convinced these legislators that we ought to pass a law that is so favorable to the gun industry that we can't even allow a county, or a city, to take action for the safety of their citizenry.

Right, and according to the statute that was passed by Hammer, who was an NRA lobbyist ...

Right.

... NRA's person down here in Florida, if you violate that law, if you try to pass a law in your city that says you can't sell AR-15s, you're going to get a $5,000 fine and more than likely the state will have the authority to remove you from office. Even though you're obviously the democratically elected leader, if you do this, we're removing you from office. We're fining you $5,000, because, by God, we've gotta protect the interest of the NRA. This is another one of those Alec sponsored pieces of legislation, and they're trying to do it all over the place. As we see so many times, Florida is always the test case for things like this.

I want to focus more on Marion Hammer, okay? There was a New Yorker story on Marion Hammer. What is so disgusting about this bottom feeder ... I mean, that's what he is. He's an absolute bottom feeder. He goes where the money is. He accomplishes any ... I don't care how deplorable the request is, there is always a guy like a Marion Hammer who will do whatever it is for a dollar. I mean, you put ... He's like, you know, kind of like a field rat. You put a little bit of food out in front of him, the field rat is going to go after the food. That's what this guy is, and he knew what he was doing when he did this. He understood the impact of what would happen here.

You have parts of Florida, let me just put that in perspective you have parts of Florida in the bigger cities around Miami-Dade, guns are a major issue, okay? You had ordinances that the police were trying to pass, that commissioners were trying to pass, to where they had ways to control when a gun outta be out there, when it shouldn't be, who outta have a gun, who shouldn't, what type of gun should be. Those are the kind of common sense things that a locality should be able to do to protect its citizens. But this bottom feeder, Marion Hammer, understood, I'm going to take your little rat money, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get your little rat money, even if it ... He understood exactly what was going to happen here. He understood lives are going to be lost. Is that too harsh? I mean, is that too harsh when you look at this story? This is infuriating.