Mumbai: Salman Khan, who has been receiving death threats and is on the target list of gangsters, finally shared his experience and how he is dealing with it.
The ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ actor has been provided with Y+ category security by the Mumbai Police amid the death threat.
Salman shared the experience at India TV’s show ‘Aap ki Adalat’ that, “Security is better than insecurity. Yes security is there. Now it is not possible to ride a bicycle on the road and go alone anywhere. And more than that, now I have this problem that when I am in traffic, then there is so much security, vehicles creating inconvenience to other people. They also give me a look. And my poor fans. There is a serious threat that’s why there is security.”
He added, “I am doing whatever I have been told. There is a dialogue ‘Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan’ ‘they have to be lucky 100 times, I have to be lucky once’. So, I got to be very careful.”
Salman continued, “I am going everywhere with full security. I know whatever is going to happen will happen no matter what you do. I believe that (points towards god) that he is there. It is not that I will start roaming freely, it is not like that. Now there are so many Shera’s around me, so many guns are going around with me that I am myself scared these days.”
Following the death threat, few days ago, a minor was arrested by Mumbai Police for allegedly threatening to kill Salman during a phone call.
Mumbai Police said that a threat call was made to the Mumbai Police control room on April 10. The caller, who identified himself as Rockey Bhai from Jodhpur in Rajasthan, said he was a Gau Rakshak (cow-vigilante). The caller threatened to “eliminate” Salman Khan on April 30.
Mumbai Police added revealed the caller was found to be a minor. “As of now, we don’t think the call should be taken seriously. But we are probing why the minor behaved in such a way,” an officer said.
On March 26, one person identified as Dhakad Ram, a resident of Luni in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur district, was arrested for sending a threat mail to Salman. He was apprehended and taken into custody.
A case was registered at Bandra police station. The accused, in his mail, alleged that the superstar will meet the same fate as “Sidhu Moosewala.”
“A case has registered at Bandra police station with regard to emailed threats to kill Salman Khan. In a joint operation, Mumbai Police and Luni police teams caught the accused, Dhakad Ram, a resident of Luni in Jodhpur district,” Ishwar Chand Pareek, an officer at Luni police station of Jodhpur told ANI earlier.
Khan has been provided with Y+ category security by the Mumbai police after assessing threat perceptions. The Maharashtra government assigned security escorts to the superstar after the actor received a threat letter from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
The governor made the announcement amid political turmoil in the state Legislature over a GOP-led ouster of two Democrats for leading a gun reform protest inside the statehouse this month. The Nashville Metropolitan Council, a body that has sparred with Republicans in the Legislature, reappointed one of the lawmakers, Rep. Justin Jones, to his seat on Monday. The second member, Rep. Justin Pearson, is also expected to be reinstated this week.
While some GOP states, including Florida and Indiana, have embraced red flag laws, such legislation faces long odds in Tennessee, a deep-red state with many Republican leaders strongly opposed to any effort that could be construed as limiting gun rights.
But Lee said that he’d been meeting with legislative leaders to discuss passing an order-of-protection law that would allow law enforcement to seek a court order confiscating firearms from people deemed a danger to themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have passed similar legislation with bipartisan support.
“I think everyone — leadership from speakers, as well as other leaders — have expressed a desire to do something and move forward,” Lee said at the police precinct that responded to the March 27 shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville that left six people dead, including three children. One of the adult victims was friends with Lee’s wife, Maria.
“I do believe we should get it done during this session,” Lee said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“We need leaders who have the courage to act at statehouses and Washington, D.C. in the United States Congress,” Harris said, her voice rising above the cheers and applause in Fisk Memorial Chapel. “Have the courage to act, instead of the cowardice to not allow debate and to not allow a discussion on the merits of what is at stake. Courage. You can’t call yourself a leader if you don’t have the courage to know what is right and act on it regardless of the popularity of the moment.”
President Joe Biden spoke to the three lawmakers Friday evening and invited them to the White House, according to officials. And Harris, in her last-minute trip, brought the White House’s push for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks to Nashville.
“Some things are up for partisan debate. Sure, and they will be because that is also a sign of a democracy. But on the issue of smart gun safety laws — background checks — the policy is really pretty straight forward. It’s to say, you might want to know before someone buys a gun whether they have been found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others. You just might want to know,” Harris said.
During the speech, Harris praised the lawmakers for their bravery and leadership amid the tragedy, drawing a throughline from Johnson, Jones and Pearson to civil rights icons like John Lewis and Diane Nash.
Harris looked out to the crowd of students and said it would be the younger generation to lead on this issue.
“We need you all. And your leadership in this movement is going to impact people that you may never meet. People who may never know your name. But because of your leadership, they will forever be benefited,” she said.
“We will not be defeated. We will not be deterred. We will not throw up our hands when it is time to roll up our sleeves. We will fight. We will lead. We will speak with truth. We will speak about freedom and justice. And we will march on.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
But because of an arcane tracing system and serial understaffing and underfunding, it takes an average of eight days to fulfill a routine trace request. Under the quickest scenarios, it can take about 48 hours, but only if the center surges resources, such as after a mass shooting, said Neil Troppman, program manager at the tracing center.
A look around the facilities explains why. Workers sometimes pull from stacked boxes of records that line the hallways, spreading the papers on the floor before taking a closer look. Other staff members spend their days converting any digital records the facility might have into non-searchable PDFs.
Congressional Republicans want it that way. They view the agency having far extended its defining purpose — turned by Democrats into a de facto arm for gun control.
“The ATF has a history of trying to target law-abiding gun owners and gun stores — rather than criminals — in pursuit of an anti-Second Amendment agenda. That’s not the purpose of the bureau, and that kind of agenda won’t keep our communities safe,” said a spokesperson for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a statement to POLITICO.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), whose legislative push to modernize ATF lacks a GOP cosponsor, called the current limitations “deliberate roadblocks to the ATF being able to do its job efficiently.”
“But let me put it this way: Nothing in this bill is a further limitation on peoples’ abilities to purchase guns,” Van Hollen said in an interview.
The debate of the role and upkeep of the tracing center provides a vivid illustration of how the obstacles gun violence advocates face aren’t simply legislative but bureaucratic.
While much of the national conversation has focused on President Joe Biden’s renewed calls for an assault weapons ban after a mass shooting in Nashville last week, other pleas from the White House have also gone unnoticed. In particular, Democrats have been rebuffed in their legislative efforts to modernize a tracing center handcuffed by a 1986 law that prohibits the government from keeping “any system of registration” of firearms, firearms owners or sales. Their calls to increase funding for the ATF, the agency the White House sees as playing a vital role in combating the onslaught of gun violence, have similarly been rejected.
“The tracing center is stuck in the past,” said Edgar Domenech, a retired ATF senior official and a former sheriff of New York City. He called it “amazing” that the ATF could conduct routine gun traces within eight days.
“Granted, it’s slower than what it was when I came on the job in 1985, when it was seven days, but you didn’t have an enormous number of records 30-plus years later,” Domenech said. “But the sad part is, the methodology is the same as it was when I came on the job in 1985.”
The ATF has been tracing firearms used in crimes since it was established in 1972. But under a new Biden administration rule issued last year, its responsibilities have grown. Licensed firearms dealers are now required to collect and maintain sales records indefinitely instead of the previous 20-year minimum. If a business shuts down or the license ends, dealers are required to send records to the national tracing center for storage.
These records sometimes arrive damaged, while other documents, because they’re handwritten, are difficult to read. ATF employees are tasked with organizing and preparing these documents, using high-powered scanners to create digital screenshots. Other gun shops have already transitioned to digital recordkeeping, but the tracing center must convert these files to PDFs that are non-searchable, because of the 1986 law. The end result, often, is that ATF employees must scroll through hundreds of pages of digital screenshots to track down information.
A revision of that law would certainly help matters for the agency. So, too, would more money, officials say. Biden’s 2024 proposed budget calls for $1.9 billion in ATF funding, a 7.4 percent bump from the current fiscal year. About $47 million is reserved for the National Tracing Center, in line with last year’s funding, according to a White House official.
“For decades, Republicans in Congress have worked to undercut and underfund ATF. At a time when we are experiencing a national epidemic of gun violence, ATF needs to be adequately resourced and empowered to do its job effectively,” the official said.
Requests for crime gun tracing have grown over the years, Troppman said. In 2022, the facility received 623,654 of them, up from 548,186 in 2021 and 490,844 in 2020. Some of the increase could be attributed to a rise in shootings and other crime, but it’s also because the ATF has encouraged law enforcement agencies to trace every weapon they find, Troppman said.
Law enforcement agencies make their firearm trace requests through an online system called eTrace, which runs on technology from the 1990s. Average processing time for a routine trace request has improved over the past few years from upwards of 14 days to the current eight days, which Troppman credits to an increase in funding and resources in 2022 and 2023. The center has 65 ATF employees and 400 contractors to maintain their current response time.
The greatest bottleneck is in record prep, where workers sort through the stacks of papers and prepare them for digitization, said Edward Courtney, deputy chief at the tracing center. The facility currently has 18 months worth of document-prep work just sitting in boxes.
And until recently, 40 cargo shipping containers sat outside of the building, each filled up to 2,000 boxes of documents. These boxes were moved to a building down the road, and the plan is to have employees begin processing the deluge of documents from gun shops that have gone out of business at the new location in the next year or so.
“The crush and the volume of what we receive in paper format requires manual labor,” Courtney said. “We just don’t have any more space back there to add really more than the 40 or so people that are doing it at any moment in time.”
A consistent parade of congressional staffers have made the trek to West Virginia to see the process for themselves in the last few months, and there are talks of a visit by a congressional delegation, Troppman said. But so far, legislative efforts to modernize the tracing center don’t appear to have a path forward.
Last year’s bill to allow the tracing center to keep a searchable database of gun records was opposed by many Republicans who argued the measure would make it easy for the government to seize Americans’ weapons or lead to lawsuits against specific gun shops, said Thomas Chittum, who worked at the agency for 23 years before retiring last year as ATF’s associate deputy director. Their argument is that a digital database could expose information about law-abiding gun buyers.
The partisan divisions go well beyond a national registry. GOP lawmakers have criticized the White House’s use of the ATF to toughen firearms enforcement. Republicans had planned to hold a mark-up last week for a resolution to repeal another Biden administration rule that required gun owners to register pistols with stabilizing braces, but the hearing was rescheduled after an elementary school shooting in Nashville.
Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde, a gun shop owner and a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees ATF funding, has already signaled he doesn’t foresee a funding increase “in any way” for the agency. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) took it a step further, saying his hope was that Congress will “reduce funding” or “eliminate” the agency, which he called “woke.”
That won’t happen, certainly not with a Democratic Senate or Biden in the White House. But a reduction in funding would mean slower response times to trace requests, and more bandaids to fix problems in a facility not operating in the 21st century. The eTrace system is just one example, Courtney said. In 2023, the tracing center was only granted 50 percent of the funding needed to purchase and hire IT professionals to complete the system upgrade.
“So now we gotta go back to the well in Fiscal Year 2024 and ask again. And who knows what we’ll get,” Courtney said. “We’re not trying to fleece anybody out of extra dollars.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Florida lawmakers approved the legislation just days after a school shooting in Nashville claimed the lives of three children, prompting emotional pleas from Democratic legislators who called the measure a step back after Florida enacted several gun restrictions in the immediate aftermath of the 2018 Parkland massacre where 17 people were killed.
“It’s shameful, it’s disrespectful to the Parkland families and every other Floridian who has lost a loved one to gun violence,” said state Sen. Lori Berman (D-West Palm Beach).
Florida joins a wave of other red states that have pushed ahead with new laws sought by gun rights supporters. Texas, Virginia, Ohio and a handful of other states have all sought to loosen gun restrictions and more than two dozen states have enacted laws similar to the one Florida approved Thursday.
Although DeSantis had signaled for months that he supports the legislation, supporters of gun rights have repeatedly called on GOP legislators to go further and allow people to in the state to carry guns openly. On Thursday, they criticized DeSantis for not going further.
“This bill is a half-measure and is not what gun owners were promised,” said Matt Collins, a gun rights supporter and former lobbyist for gun rights groups. “It isn’t true constitutional carry because it doesn’t include an open-carry provision. This bill is weak and failed leadership on part of Governor DeSantis and the Republican legislative leadership. Gun owners deserve better.”
Republicans in Florida have controlled the Legislature for more than 20 years and have gradually loosened gun restrictions. But right after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, they voted to raise the age requirement to purchase a rifle and enacted a “red flag” law that allows law enforcement officials to ask a judge to remove guns from someone who is a threat to themselves or others.
DeSantis — while campaigning for governor back in 2018 — said he would have not signed that Parkland measure into law. The Florida House has been moving a bill to roll back the age requirement to 18, which it what it was when Nikolas Cruz purchased the semi-automatic rifle he used at Parkland. GOP Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, however, has said she does not support lowering the age restriction.
DeSantis has said that was in favor of open carry, but Passidomo and some other Republican legislators were opposed to letting residents carry guns in public, citing the opposition of many Florida sheriffs.
Florida law currently makes it a felony if someone carries a concealed weapon without a permit. There are more than 2.64 million people with concealed weapon licenses who must go through training and a background check first. The new law — which takes effect on July 1 — does not end the permitting program but instead makes it optional. Bill supporters contend many Floridians will go through the permitting process because other state recognize the licenses.
The Senate voted 28-13 — with Miami Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia joining all 12 Democrats in opposition — to send the measure to DeSantis’ desk. The Florida House passed the legislation by a 76-32 vote last week.
Ahead of the vote, there was a polarizing debate that followed the same divide over guns that took place nationally after tragic mass shootings as both sides exchanged barbs over constitutional rights and whether ending the state’s permitting program would lead to an uptick in gun related deaths.
“This bill attempts to return the God given rights of humanity, the God given rights of self-defense,” said state Sen. Jonathan Martin (R-Fort Myers).
“I’ve looked all through the Bible,” retorted Sen. Bobby Powell. “There’s no scripture that talks about guns in the Bible. That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten gun is not in there.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
SRINAGAR: In order to curb high-speed stunt biking and rash driving of vehicles, Traffic Police Srinagar on Monday said they have received a few ‘Speed Radar Guns’, a specialized device to assess the speed of moving vehicles.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) for City Traffic, Muzaffar Ahmad Shah while speaking to the media at his office said the department was short of the equipment to measure the speed of moving vehicles, and now they have received an inventory of a few ‘Speed Radar Guns’.
” The device would be used to crack down on high-speed stunt biking,” he said.
“We would be using the speed radar guns, which would assist us in detecting the people who drive erratically and at high speeds,” he said, adding that in the coming months, the Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) is going to be activated. The installation of multiple cameras will automatically detect and minimize traffic violations, he added.
Talking about Sunday’s Parimpora incident in which a group of boys riding two-wheelers was seen allegedly harassing a family and said to be involved in stunt biking, the SSP said, “There was a swift action by the Parimpora police station, and the action will serve as an indication to those who are involved in these kinds of acts. Law is very clear about it and nobody can escape.”
Shah said the initiative on underage driving and rash driving was taken last year but the effort can only be successful if parents cooperate.
He urged parents to not allow minors to drive either four-wheelers or two-wheelers, and those who do so should make sure their children have all the required paperwork, including a driver’s license, and that they are wearing helmets when riding two-wheelers. (KNO)
Srinagar, Feb 25: On February 25, 2021, India and Pakistan army top brass renewed the ceasefire pact in a bid to ensure peace along the Line of Control (LoC). Two years on, the agreement between the two sides is being strictly adhered to paving way for the LoC residents to reap the peace dividends and to live a normal life after so many decades.
The ceasefire violations that otherwise had claimed many lives, left many handicapped, and damaged property worth crores, have come to almost zero since past two years as guns from the both sides have fallen silent.
It is the two years of reaffirmation of the ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan. “The ceasefire agreement has changed the lives. Hope this lasts…,” Muhammad Ashraf, a Sarpanch in Uri area of northern district of Baramulla, told news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO). “We are happy, so are our families, especially children. Farming activities, schooling, marriages, sports activities are going on peacefully and normally without any fear.”
Ashraf said that people in Uri visit their agriculture fields close to LoC without fear. “Two years have been peaceful years of our lives. The feeling is different and we are delighted and contended,” he said.
Sabir Khan, a resident of Garkote village, close to LoC in Uri, said that he and his family has borne the brunt of ceasefire violations. “I lost my wife and two children to the shelling. My brother lost his leg. There are many like us,” he said. “Hope this silence on LoC continues so that our children can see a peaceful life ahead.”
Youth in Uri are wearing a gentle smile. “It’s really good. We have participated in so many sports activities in past two years. Before that, our parents never allowed us to play in open,” said Zaid Rashid, class 8, student. “We can even go for trekking. This has now become our passion.”
On February 25, 2021, in a surprising development, when tensions were running high on both sides, the DGsMO of India and Pakistan issued a joint statement that read: “In the interest of achieving mutually beneficial and sustainable peace along the borders, the two DGsMO agreed to address each other’s core issues and concerns which have the propensity to disturb the peace and lead to violence. Both sides agreed for strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing along the Line of Control and all other sectors with effect from midnight February 24-25 Feb 2021.”
This was the first time since the 2003 ceasefire agreement that both countries agreed to adhere to the ceasefire. The decision came after the revocation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019. The speculations of many analysts suggested that the ceasefire won’t last long, but prevailing peace along the LoC has proved them wrong.
Residents of Karnah, Teetwal and Kupwara echoed similar story of peace, calm and happiness. “Shelling and exchange of fire damaged our houses, crops and took away our loved ones too,” said Atiqa, a resident of Karnah, adding that “We have tasted peace for the first time in past two years. We can venture out anytime without fear. Our children study and roam around freely. Guns have fallen silent since past two years, we hope this will remain so.” She said earlier, their demand was construction of underground bunkers but now the residents of border villages demand better roads, upgradation of health care infrastructure and better educational set up including colleges, and schools.
Defence officials said that both sides are strictly adhering to the ceasefire pact. “In 2021, there were zero violations and in year 2022 figure is almost same,” said an official—(KNO)
Law firms have been warned by their regulator that they should not act as “hired guns” to silence critics of the wealthy, amid a spate of allegations of abusive litigation by Russian oligarchs since the invasion of Ukraine.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has revealed that it is investigating 40 cases of alleged strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps). There are “significant concerns being raised about solicitors making meritless claims on behalf of oligarchs to stifle public discourse about corruption or money laundering”, it said in a report published this week.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened scrutiny of the super-rich using litigation to try to silence critics and journalists reporting on allegations of corruption. That has in turn increased scrutiny by MPs and campaigners of British lawyers who act for wealthy foreign clients, including those subject to financial sanctions from the UK or its allies.
“Solicitors are not simply ‘hired guns’,” the SRA wrote. “That means they should not bring cases which are not properly arguable, bring excessive or oppressive proceedings, or act in a way which could mislead or take advantage of others during proceedings.”
The SRA also noted that lawyers have an obligation to report potential Slapps to the regulator. Its review of 25 firms found three instances where lawyers failed to report potentially abusive litigation.
One alleged Slapp case being investigating by the SRA is action by a London-based law firm on behalf of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch who runs the Wagner group, a notorious mercenary army. Wagner has been accused of human rights abuses and murdering civilians in Mali and Central African Republic, and it has taken an increasingly important role in Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
The SRA is investigating Discreet Law, a firm set up by the British lawyer Roger Gherson, in relation to a suit brought by Prigozhin against Eliot Higgins, a journalist and the founder of the Bellingcat journalism organisation, which had reported on his links to the Wagner group. The case was dismissed by the high court in London, and Higgins’s lawyers later complained to the SRA that this was a Slapp suit. Discreet Law stopped representing Prigozhin in March 2022, the Financial Times reported.
Discreet Law also acted in a libel action for Anar Mahmudov and Nargiz Mahmudova, the children of Eldar Mahmudov, a former Azerbaijani security minister. They tried to sue a Spanish journalist and five Spanish news outlets for defamation over “allegations about the origins of the family’s wealth”. A London judge said the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the claim.
Prigozhin is not the only Russia-linked oligarch under UK sanctions who has been represented by Gherson, who also operates the firm Gherson Solicitors, which he founded in 1988. Gherson worked with Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven to challenge EU sanctions placed on them because of the Ukraine war.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also prompted increased scrutiny of other services on offer from UK-based legal advisers. British MPs and transparency campaigners have raised concerns about abuse of “golden visa” schemes – which typically allow wealthy investors to apply for citizenship in return for investments. In the UK, the government’s “golden visa” scheme was targeted by people with suspected criminal links as well as 10 Russian oligarchs who were later subjected to sanctions, a government review disclosed last month.
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Gherson is also linked to Discreet Advisory Services, a Monaco-based company offering advice to overseas clients that includes “secondary citizenship” services, which offer very wealthy clients the chance to apply for visas for different countries. OpenDemocracy first reported the link to the Monaco company.
A spokesperson for Discreet Law said: “As you will appreciate, as lawyers we are unable to disclose confidential information relating to our former clients. It is public knowledge that Discreet Law LLP acted for Mr Prigozhin and our position is that at all times we complied fully with our legal and professional obligations.”
A spokesperson for Gherson Solicitors LLP said: “As lawyers, we are unable to disclose confidential information about the legal services that we have provided to our clients.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
“I feel I need one everywhere here. There are often times we are harassed in the hallways. We walk alone,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) replied, underscoring that it would “not be an unloaded weapon.”
But the California Democrat defended his push for the amendment: “We can have our political disagreements, and they will be spirited. But no one should have to worry about members of the other side of the aisle — let alone members who have incited political violence — bringing weapons, in violation of House rules, into our committee room.”
While they held the House majority in 2021, Democrats added an explicit prohibition on bringing firearms to the committee room “in the wake of the Jan. 6″ Capitol attack, ranking member Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said. That move also responded to an attempt at the time by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) to bring a firearm onto the House floor, a move that further exacerbated security concerns.
Members of Congress are afforded certain carve-outs to the otherwise outright ban on firearms on the Capitol complex: They are permitted to keep guns in their offices and transport them, if they are unloaded and securely wrapped. Guns are explicitly forbidden on the House and Senate floors, as well as certain nearby areas.
Panel Republicans repeatedly called the amendment unnecessary and argued they should not be viewed as safety threats by their colleagues.
“Do you think we’re going to hurt you? We would never hurt you. I would use my firearm to defend you. Just to be clear,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a freshman, said.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) asked Ocasio-Cortez whether she thought any committee member was a “homicidal maniac,” challenging her to “name the names and present the evidence.”
Ocasio-Cortez replied that she was not trying to “impugn the character of any individual member of this committee” but that “from what I’ve witnessed, the competence of some members may be something that I would be willing to question.”
Democrats, for their part, repeatedly pressed Westerman to answer how he interpreted the existing House rules for gun possession.
“When you have reason to believe committee members, right here, intend to bring weapons into this committee room … we’re entitled to your interpretation of the House rules,” Huffman said. “You need to tell them that that’s either okay or not for the safety and security this committee.”
His push was ultimately unsuccessful though, as the amendment fell 14-25. Huffman is, however, also collecting signatures on a letter to congressional leadership seeking information on security preparations ahead of the State of the Union address next week.
Nancy Vu contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“Florida led the nation in allowing for concealed carry, and that extends today as we remove the government permission slip to exercise a constitutional right,” Renner said Monday during a news conference, where he was flanked by a handful of county sheriffs.
Renner spearheaded the press conference, a signal it’s a clear top priority for the speaker, but the bill is being sponsored by state Rep. Chuck Brannan (R-Lake City) and state Sen. Jay Collins (R-Tampa). Lawmakers did not formally file a bill at the time of the news conference but are expected to by Monday afternoon.
Under the proposal, the state will no longer require individuals to get a permit from Florida to own a gun. The state also won’t mandate other provisions, including a training requirement needed to get a permit. Permits would still be an option for gun owners who want to get them, something needed to be able to legally carry a gun in states that do not have permitless carry.
The proposal does not address whether people will be allowed to openly carry firearms in public. Under current Florida law, gun owners are not allowed to carry guns in the open.
In 2021, Texas approved a similar “open carry” law that allows most gun owners 21 and over to carry a handgun in a holster without a permit. The Texas law allows citizens to carry the gun in the open or concealed.
Democrats blasted the bill that they say will flood the state with gun owners who are not properly trained. Shortly after Renner’s press conference, Democrats pledged to fight to defeat it during the 2023 session — but Republicans have supermajorities in both the House and Senate, giving them near unchecked power.
“We are united in opposition to this policy proposal,” said Rep. Christine Hunschofsky (D-Parkland), whose district includes the scene of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass school shooting that left 17 people dead.
Democrats also see the proposal as another in a long line of culture war-infused bills DeSantis will champion during the legislative session to further energize his conservative base as he prepares to run for president. In the past few week alone, DeSantis has asked lawmakers for a sweeping criminal justice bill packed with policies generally supported by conservatives, rejected an Advanced Placement course focused on African-American history, a move that has gotten him national criticism from those who think he is whitewashing American history and signaled he will push for legislation cracking down on teacher’s unions, which are the last bastion of reliable political support for Florida Democrats.
“This is another effort to appeal to his conservative base as he runs for president,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando).
DeSantis was not at the Tallahassee press conference, instead holding his own at the same time in Orlando focused on transportation budget requests.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
