By Joshua Rhett Miller
A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence.
The bill filed Saturday by state Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, would require a three-day waiting period for the sale of any firearm and the sale of ammunition to anyone who has not completed anger management courses. The proposal would require ammo buyers to take the anger management courses every 10 years.
Critics of the bill, however, derided the legislation as “absolutely ridiculous” and suggested that Gibson take a course on the U.S. Constitution.
“When I first saw it, I thought it had to be a joke,” said Sean Caranna, executive director of Florida Carry, a nonprofit group championing the right to bear arms. “They’re trying to say that anyone who owns a gun or shoots a gun or has ammunition for it needs counseling and obviously has some anger problems.”
Jon Gutmacher, an Orlando attorney and author of “Florida Firearms: Law, Use & Ownership,” told FoxNews.com that the bill would almost certainly be found to be unconstitutional based on prior restraint.
“It has no reasonable relationship to anything,” he said. “There has to be a reasonable basis to believe that a person had a substantial anger problem that could cause public harm.”
Gutmacher said he found the bill to be an “insult” to any gun owner in the Sunshine State.
“It’s absurd on its face,” he continued. “And anyone who proposes that legislation is in my mind unfit for the legislature because it shows a basic problem with their thinking process, aside from their lack of understanding of what the Constitution is all about. That’s the kind of bill that doesn’t even get past committee.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/11/florida-lawmaker-wants-anger-management-courses-for-ammunition-buyers/
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