Posted on 04/05/2002 8:23:28 PM PST by ConservativeLawyer
Legislature: Lawmakers change school code to allow guns locked in cars
Thursday, April 4, 2002
By JACKIE HALLIFAX, Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE — Legislators refused Wednesday to outlaw students from keeping guns locked in cars on school property — but it was close.
By a 19-19 vote, the state Senate defeated a proposal that would have prohibited school boards from allowing students to bring guns to school if the firearms were locked in their cars.
The proposal was an amendment to the massive school code rewrite bill lawmakers are working on in a four-day special session.
Earlier Wednesday, the House Council on Lifelong Learning defeated a similar amendment 12-6.
Under current state law, school districts must have "zero tolerance" policies against crime, drugs and guns. Students who violate the code are expelled for a year.
But Florida's gun statute gives school boards the power to make exceptions to zero-tolerance policies for guns locked in cars on school property or for things like hunting safety classes or rifle clubs.
And changes made earlier this year to federal education law require the exemption, officials said.
No school board has included the exemption in its zero-tolerance policy, but Sen. Betty Holzendorf introduced the amendment to erase that possibility.
"What happens when ... a student with a firearm locked in their car gets angry on the last day of school and sprays bullets everywhere?" the Jacksonville Democrat asked.
Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg, asked for an example of "where a firearm in a locked car would be a good thing."
But Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, said the exemption was in the state's gun law and the issue shouldn't be treated differently in the school code.
Lawmakers defending the exemption in the House included Rep. Jerry Melvin and Heather Fiorentino.
"It's one thing to have zero tolerance," said Fiorentino, R-New Port Richey. "It's another to have zero common sense."
Melvin, R-Fort Walton Beach, said school boards need to have the responsibility for making such decisions. He said he didn't think removing the exception would make any difference.
"Nothing would stop any student from running home, getting a gun and shooting somebody," he said.
Kids can't "own" guns in Florida so refused Wednesday to outlaw students from keeping guns locked in cars on school property is nothing more than BS as rich as six foot up a bulls butt IMHO...........unless of course she was speaking about 21 year old professional student's at college ........she was real clear bout that eh :o)
Stay Safe !
Have a nice weekend.
Stay Safe !
The liberal press gets my blood boiling, too.
I must say, however, I believe this piece of legislation applies to the students as well as the adults. Section 790.22 of the Florida statutes allows a minor to possess a firearm if:
"(3)...(a) The minor is engaged in a lawful hunting activity and is:
1. At least 16 years of age;...
(b) The minor is engaged in a lawful marksmanship competition or practice or other lawful recreational shooting activity and is:
1. At least 16 years of age; ...or
(c) The firearm is unloaded and is being transported by the minor directly to or from an event authorized in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b)."
So a 16-year-old high school student could conceivably be legally transporting a firearm to a marksmanship competition or practice. Of course taking it to school first wouldn't be transporting it "directly" to or from the event...unless the marksmanship event is part of a school activity.
And you and I know how likely that would be.
All in all, my hat is off to the Florida legislature for exhibiting the courage to do this in today's climate of anti-gun hysteria.
Stay Safe !!
Well, there was that case in Mississippi where a couple people went to get firearms which they used to stop a crazed shooter. Of course, arguably the fact that these people had their guns locked in their cars was a bad thing since they should have had them on their persons, but . . .
I'm not sure why they do this: Presumably they might see a varmit on the way home from school, or go hunting after school.
Would you share specifics about this case? Caliber? Weapon? Age of child and father? Type of vehicle? Police report filed? Court case desposition?
Best regards,
Easy...we buy gun racks that fit. Personally, I see much more utility for a gun in my pickup than I can for jewelry.
Back when I was in high school, firearms were regulated more on a county by county basis. It was not unusual for students to have rifles or shotguns in racks in the windows of their pickup trucks parked in the school parking lot.
And we didn't have any school shootings.
The obvious lesson is: Its not the guns causing school shootings.
For the record, on the record, at your earliest convenience please supply a news source or medical or legal citation for this case of negligent discharge with which you seem to be personally familiar.
Reasonably knowledgable individuals in several fields of expertise as well as the general gunowning public would likely learn how to avoid any future incidents of this type if the details of this incident were more widely disseminated.
Many thanks.
Best regards,
Agreed! If people like the Jacksonville Democrat Sen. Betty Holzendorf has her way, Fla. will look like Calif. in no time. Gun lic. and registration, ban of tactical weapons, currently trying to ban ammo sales in L.A. county, etc... Once these people start you down the slippery slope it's almost impossible to stop. (Vote them out of office while you can!)
"What happens when ... a student with a firearm locked in their car gets angry on the last day of school and sprays bullets everywhere?" the Jacksonville Democrat Sen. Betty Holzendorf asked.
This is the same rhetoric they use out here. The fallacy in logic here is obvious, if you follow this line of reasoning you create the fish in a barrel syndrome. Zero tolerance = zero defense!
This is the troubled position in which I found myself when I read LadyDoc's post about a tragic case of negligent discharge that apparently occurred sometime in her career as a physician.
While truth is frequently stranger than fiction, no story should be accepted at face value if it cannot withstand the most modest examination as to time and place or details about equipment and personalities.
In the spirit of peer review and robust debate I list below some of the most obvious difficulties I have with LadyDoc's anecdote about a careless gun owner.
See if you, casual reader, can believe the things I must believe in order to accept this story at face value.
Invoking the authority and moral credibility of one of the most respected professions in the country LadyDoc writes in the persona of a trained medical practitioner to paint a portrait of careless gun use with almost Haiku-like brevity leaving the readers imagination filled with the horrific consequences of this carelessness, to wit:
A rural person, (redneck? illiterate? uneducated?) male(not just any male, a father, no, a daddy!) transports his rifle (of unknown caliber, unknown manufacture, unknown length) with a chambered round (safety off? hammer back?) in a rifle rack (of unknown design, unknown manufacture)in his vehicle (from the context of the statement probably a pickup truck.).
The vehicle "hits a bump" (pothole? sinkhole? off road dirt track racing?) which then initiates a spectacular sequence of failure- the rifle falls off the rack(no locking mechanism?)and the GUN SHOOTS(no human intervention required!) a CHILD (HIS DAUGHTER! of unknown age! probably a winsome young teenager) in the GROIN?
Magically this evil rifle (of unknown caliber, unknown manufacture and unknown condition) does not kill this helpless child even though in the confined space of a vehicle (pickup truck? SUV? Toyota Camry?) that would be the most probable outcome.
Even more magically no legal authority ( Sheriff, Local Police, Ambulance Chasing Attorney ) finds it necessary to investigate this incident or file a report.
Forgive my skepticism, but this tale almost lends itself to some kind of Camille Paglia interpretative mythology.
You have an inept possibly evil male, a helpless (young) female (victim),an inanimate object with a will of it's own (clearly an implement of the devil) and a sexual injury!.
Good grief, is it possible to pack more (questionable?) imagery into fewer words?
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out how.
Best regards
Hey watch that! ;o)
This is a common public health problem. Sorry you don't like it. Actually, I defend gun use, but like automobiles, medicines, eating and other things around us, guns have a high risk associated with them.
When you deny this, people will ignore you. If you argue that the benefit risk ratio is worth it, you will get backings.
FYI:
Nonfatal and Fatal Firearm-Related Injuries -- United States, 1993-1997
In 1997, 32,436 deaths resulted from firearm-related injuries, making such injuries the second leading cause of injury mortality in the United States after motor-vehicle-related incidents (1). Also in 1997, an estimated 64,207 persons sustained nonfatal firearm-related injuries and were treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments (EDs); approximately 40% required inpatient hospital care. National firearm-related injury and death rates peaked in 1993, then began to decline (2). This report presents national data from 1993 through 1997, which showed that the decline in nonfatal and fatal firearm-related injury rates was substantial and consistent by sex, race/ethnicity, age, and intent of injury.
A firearm-related injury was defined as a penetrating injury or gunshot wound from a weapon that uses a powder charge to fire a projectile (e.g., handguns, rifles, and shotguns). Data on nonfatal firearm-related injuries treated in U.S. hospital EDs were obtained from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. NEISS is a stratified probability sample of hospitals in the United States that have at least six beds and provide 24-hour emergency care (3). Each firearm-related injury treated in a NEISS hospital ED was assigned a sample weight; the weights were summed to provide national estimates of nonfatal injuries (3). In 1997, the number of participating NEISS hospitals increased from 91 to 101; therefore, for this analysis, national estimates of nonfatal injuries for prior years were statistically adjusted to account for the sampling frame update. Data on firearm-related deaths were obtained through death certificate data from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (1), and population estimates were from the Bureau of the Census.
To examine trends in nonfatal firearm-related rates by intent of injury, sample weights for cases with unknown intent (i.e., 13.4% of nonfatal injuries during the 5-year period) were allocated to one of the three known categories--assault/legal intervention, intentionally self-inflicted, or unintentional injury. This allocation accounted for the quarterly variation in the percentage of weighted cases with unknown intent during the study period, ranging from 7.1% to 17.7%. Cases with unknown intent were allocated within each quarter based on the weighted distribution of cases with known intent for that quarter. Although the percentage of firearm-related deaths with unknown intent was minimal (i.e., 1.2% of deaths during the 5-year period), these cases also were allocated to maintain consistency.
National estimates of nonfatal firearm-related injuries, their standard errors, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the percentage decline in rates were computed using SUDAAN software to account for the sample weights and the complex survey design of NEISS. For firearm-related deaths, standard errors of death rates were computed assuming deaths follow a Poisson probability distribution so that CIs for the percentage decline in rates accounted for random variation. Multiple linear regression was performed to test for quarterly trends over the 5-year period.
Overall, annual nonfatal and fatal firearm-related injury rates declined consistently from 1993 through 1997. The annual nonfatal rate decreased 40.8%, from 40.5 per 100,000 (95% CI=22.6-58.4) in 1993 to 24.0 per 100,000 (95% CI=13.8-34.1) in 1997 (Table 1). This decline was accompanied by a decrease of 21.1% in the annual death rate from 15.4 per 100,000 (95% CI=15.2-15.5) in 1993 to 12.1 per 100,000 (95% CI=12.0-12.3) in 1997 (Table 2).
The declines in nonfatal and fatal firearm-related injury rates generally were consistent across all population subgroups (Tables 1 and 2). The declines in nonfatal and fatal injury rates were similar for males (40.7% for nonfatal, 20.9% for fatal) and for females (42.1% for nonfatal, 23.2% for fatal). Declines in death rates for blacks and Hispanics were similar, and were both greater than the decline observed for non-Hispanic whites. For nonfatal injury rates, no consistent pattern was found in the estimated decline across age groups, but for fatal injury rates, age and percentage change were inversely related. With respect to intent, the declines in nonfatal injury rates were seen in assault-related, intentionally self-inflicted, and unintentional firearm-related injuries. However, the declines in homicide and unintentional injury death rates were approximately three times greater than that of the suicide rate.
Overall, quarterly fatal and nonfatal firearm-related injury rates showed statistically significant downward trends over the 5-year period adjusting for seasonal changes (overall predicted percentage declines were 36.6% and 17.3% for nonfatal and fatal injury rates, respectively, from first quarter 1993 through fourth quarter 1997; pless than 0.01 for both). For males aged 15-24 years, quarterly assaultive firearm-related injury rates also declined significantly from 1993 through 1997 (Figure 1) (overall predicted percentage declines were 37.5% and 16.0% for nonfatal and fatal injury rates, respectively, from first quarter 1993 through fourth quarter 1997; pless than 0.01 for both). For males aged 15-24 years, the cyclical seasonal pattern was consistent for both fatal and nonfatal assaultive firearm-related injury rates (Figure 1), with the highest rates occurring during July, August, and September. These summer rates were significantly higher than rates during the other three quarters for fatal injuries (pless than 0.01) but not for nonfatal injuries (p=0.17).
Reported by: Office of Statistics and Programming and Div of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC.
Editorial Note: The overall percentage decline in nonfatal and fatal firearm-related injury rates in the U.S. population from 1993 through 1997 is consistent with a 21% decrease in violent crime during the same time (4). Since 1950, unintentional fatal firearm-related injury rates have declined. NEISS data also suggest a decline since 1993 in the rate of nonfatal unintentional firearm-related injuries treated in hospital EDs. Most of these nonfatal injuries occurred among males aged 15-44 years, were self-inflicted, and were associated with hunting, target shooting, and routine gun handling (i.e., cleaning, loading, and unloading a gun) (5). Additional investigation should focus on factors that may have contributed to the decrease, such as gun safety courses and information campaigns, the proportion of the population that uses guns for recreational purposes, and legislation.
Numerous factors may have contributed to the decrease in both nonfatal and fatal assaultive firearm-related injury rates. Possible contributors include improvements in economic conditions; the aging of the population; the decline of the crack cocaine market; changes in legislation, sentencing guidelines, and law-enforcement practices; and improvements associated with violence prevention programs (6). However, the importance and relative contribution of each of these factors have not been determined, and the reasons are not known for the declines in firearm-related suicide and suicide attempt rates.
This analysis also indicates that using NEISS is an effective means for tracking national estimates of nonfatal firearm-related injuries. Quarterly nonfatal firearm-related injury rates based on NEISS data track closely with firearm-related death rates based on death-certificate data. For males aged 15-24 years, a known high-risk group for assaultive injury (2,3), both fatal and nonfatal quarterly assaultive firearm-related rates show cyclical seasonal trends over the 5-year study period, with the highest rates occurring during the summer months.
A limitation of NEISS is that it is not designed to provide data to examine trends at the state and local level. State and local data are needed for jurisdictions to design and evaluate firearm-related injury-prevention programs. CDC has collaborated with states and communities to design and implement successful firearm-related injury surveillance and data systems (7), which can serve as models for future efforts.
Although firearm-related injuries have declined substantially across all intent categories and population subgroups, recent school-related shootings, multiple shootings, and homicide-suicide incidents are reminders that firearm-related injuries remain a serious public health concern. Even with the significant declines in nonfatal and fatal firearm-related injury rates, approximately 96,000 persons in the United States sustained gunshot wounds in 1997. However, results from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey also indicate a decline in violence-related behavior among high school students, including a 25% decline in carrying guns on school property and a 9% decline in engaging in a physical fight on school grounds during this 5-year period (8 ). Prevention efforts should continue to design, implement, and evaluate public health, criminal justice, and education programs to further reduce firearm-related injuries in the United States.
Thank you for your lengthy reply.
I will certainly exchange dueling statistics with you for as long as you desire.
But I also remain curious about the incident you described and with which you seem to be personally acquainted.
Will you put my concerns to rest and provide accurate and timely information about the specifics of this poor child who was so brutally injured by her father's firearm?
Many thanks.
Best regards,
*****************************************************
Link
JAMA Strikes Again at Gun Owners
By Timothy Wheeler, M.D.
{Appeared in the August 12, 1999 edition of WorldNetDaily}
Into a field already flooded with advocacy research comes another blast of junk science directed at gun manufacturers and owners. An article published in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association touts the high public cost of treating gunshot wounds. The problem? It says nothing about the money and lives saved when guns are used defensively.
JAMA's former editor, Dr. George Lundberg, was fired recently for publishing a paper on oral sex intended to lend a "scientific" aura to President Clinton's claim that he didn't really have sex with "that woman." Instead of learning from that mistake, the new editors of the American Medical Association's premier scientific journal have showcased yet another political advocacy piece.
According to the authors, Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig of Duke University, people who suffered gunshot wounds in 1994 incurred $2.3 billion in lifetime medical costs. Half of those costs, the authors say, are borne by taxpayers. We are supposed to fill in the blanks by concluding that guns are bad and should be banned.
What marks the latest anti-gun JAMA article as junk science is its complete silence about the lives saved and injuries prevented by defensive gun uses. This is akin to publishing an article that condemns the costs of the few serious vaccine reactions without mentioning the lives vaccines save from smallpox and polio. The analogy is apt, since most research proves defensive gun use to be the best immunization against becoming a victim of violent crime.
The odd thing is that Cook and Ludwig did prior research confirming huge numbers of lives saved with guns in 1994. They published a Police Foundation study showing that Americans used guns 1.5 million times that year to protect themselves from violent criminals.
Cook and Ludwig admit that their data show as many as 630,000 lives saved in 1994 by armed self-defense. In other words, for every person wounded or killed by gunfire in 1994, nearly five lives were saved by the defensive use of guns.
Why didn't Cook and Ludwig present this momentous conclusion in the current JAMA study? Didn't they think it was important in sorting out the risks and benefits of gun ownership?
The answers to these questions may be found in an emerging standard of scientific journalism that places social activism over scientific ethics. The recent turnover at JAMA shows the momentum of this unhappy trend.
When Lundberg was fired from JAMA, medical journal editors from around the globe rallied to his defense with a battle cry of editorial independence. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the editors want to be free of the old ethical requirements of objectivity and fairness. When you're on a public health crusade to rid the world of guns, facts only get in the way.
This explains why the Police Foundation study was omitted from the current JAMA study, and why it is not cited in other medical anti-gun articles. Although Cook and Ludwig tried to play down what they found, they acknowledge that their confirmation of widespread defensive use of guns agrees with many other studies. They know that this evidence is damaging to the cause of gun prohibition. The temptation to delete it from the debate must be great. In court, this would be called concealing evidence. In science, it is simply unethical conduct.
To their credit, not all medical journal editors have sold out their ethics to promote social agendas. New England Journal of Medicine executive editor Dr. Marcia Angell courageously exposed the tawdry story of silicone breast implant litigation. Trial lawyers managed to wring billions of dollars from silicone manufacturers on flimsy scientific grounds. Plaintiffs bolstered their outlandish claims of implant-induced symptoms with junk science that has since been disproved conclusively. Yet the junk science survives in the public's imagination.
Now we will see the latest JAMA article--and others that will no doubt follow it--cited as supporting evidence in the burgeoning epidemic of government litigation against gun manufacturers. Science will see its good name sullied by lawyers laboring to bankrupt gun makers in court. And worst of all, we will always wonder if JAMA is telling us the truth about real medical problems, or pushing another political agenda.
Timothy Wheeler, M.D., is the Director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a Project of The Claremont Institute.
All pages copyright © 1999 The Claremont Institute
Present company excepted, of course.
Best regards,
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