Life Resumes on Friday

Time for a nice hurricane update.

The good news: Milton is much weaker than it was last night.

The bad news: Milton is expected to double in size.

The good news, at least for me: the track is holding steady with the cone centered south of Tampa.

The bad news: people in that area got blasted by storm surge twice this year.

The good news: I bought Pop Tarts.

The bad news: Walmart was out of cherry frosted.

This pretty much sums it up. I don’t know if I need to write anything else.

DeSantis continues to be the greatest governor imaginable. He issued an order forbidding the guy in charge of the state’s disaster response to restrict the sale of guns and ammunition. I don’t think it means anything, however, because DeSantis appointed him, and he never tried to pull anything before.

The police chief of Okeechobee, Florida, is another story. He signed an order banning the sale of guns and ammunition in his town. Think that’s bad? It also banned gun possession in public areas. I am pretty sure no state in the union has tried to do that. I believe his order put Okeechobee, Florida behind Hawaii and Massachusetts.

The order was supposed to cover the period during which Hurricane Helene would pass through.

Hagan now says he enacted the order by mistake, and that he canceled it immediately. That looks like a huge lie. You can see the order all over the web. It’s very simple. It’s short. His signature is at the bottom. Unless he signs things while blindfolded or at a party at P Diddy’s house, he appears to be a tremendous liar.

Maybe he means he mistakenly thought the law made him an emperor because he didn’t read it correctly. That is plausible. There is a law on the books allowing the governor to ban gun and ammunition sales plus possession in public if:

there is reason to believe that there exists a clear and present danger of a riot or other general public disorder, widespread disobedience of the law, and substantial injury to persons or to property, all of which constitute an imminent threat to public peace or order and to the general welfare of the jurisdiction affected or a part or parts thereof.

A police chief is not a governor.

This is not the kind of “mistake” that would excuse him, because it would still mean he wanted to take away people’s civil rights. And the conditions mentioned in the law did not exist when he issued his illegal order.

Maybe he did it because Okeechobee County has a big minority population. Most crimes are committed by minorities.

I think this is a stupid law, because in application, it would do more harm than it would prevent. I must not be alone in thinking this. All of these conditions were met after Hurricane Andrew, and flaky Democrat Governor Lawton Chiles didn’t activate the law.

Another Democrat might.

After Andrew, ghetto types roamed Dade County looting houses and businesses. The National Guard swarmed the ghettos. People put signs in their yards reading, “You loot we shoot.” They sat in their yards with pistols and rifles on display. They probably patrolled neighborhoods. The cops were overwhelmed. People really needed guns, and they didn’t just need them in their yards. They needed them while on the move.

You can say we shouldn’t let people have guns when order has broken down. Well, they already have them. And of course, criminals won’t obey an emergency order. Better to let the citizenry protect itself. This is the philosophy behind the Second Amendment, after all.

Also, during a crisis, a gun shop would still have to do background checks and observe waiting periods. The only people who would be able to get guns quickly in Florida would be permit holders, and we already have guns.

Florida has preemption, which means no one but the legislature can regulate firearms. This is why there are backyard gun ranges near Miami and Palm Beach. The county can’t do anything about it. Old Jewish ladies who moved here from New York can ring the cops’ phones off the wall, and nothing will happen. The cops are bound by preemption.

A police chief can’t appoint himself Supreme Commander and take people’s guns.

It doesn’t matter to me. First of all, I would violate the law egregiously and continuously before endangering my family, second, I have no police chief, and third, my sheriff is more likely to order people to carry guns than to ban them.

Florida may be about to get open carry. Insanely, this is one of only 4 states that ban it. Gun Owners of America and a citizen have sued St. Lucie County Keith Pearson and State Attorney Thomas Bakkedahl in an attempt to get rid of Florida’s anomalous ban. Attorney General Ashley Moody, who hopes to be governor, has refused to help the defendants.

The leftists at Politico are saying she’s a hypocrite because she has complained about officials refusing to enforce laws, but of course, they’re weaseling. Florida does enforce the carry ban, every day. Refusing to defend it in court is another thing entirely, and it’s a completely legitimate move by an attorney general who may disagree with the law.

If there is a state or federal law requiring attorneys general to defend lawsuits seeking to get laws repealed, I am unaware of it.

St. Lucie County has an enormous minority population, and Democrats outnumber sane people there. The State Attorney named in the case is a career prosecutor, so he could be conservative. Sheriff Keith Pearson is a lame duck Republican. He lost a recent primary.

How do I feel about open carry? I’m 100% for it. I don’t plan to do it, and I think concealed carry is usually better, but anything that makes it harder for the government to jail people for obeying the spirit of the Second Amendment is okay by me.

“Florida will be like the wild West! There will be duels in the streets!” Yes, it will be a war zone just like New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa…don’t make me list them all.

Open carry will help people get over their gun phobias, it will help insure good manners in public places, it will help the cops to know who is and is not armed, and it will get rid of a lot of hassle. “Is my shirt long enough?” “Can people figure out what that bulge is?” None of that nonsense will matter any more. It should also make it permissible to carry rifles in public, and that will be helpful to a lot of people.

It might put an end to late-night brawls at Denny’s and Waffle House, although probably not, because those things still happen in states with open carry.

For a second, I had hope.

I don’t have any idea what will happen in the case. Even if the defendants default, you never know what a judge will do. He might be married to an old Jewish lady who moved here from New York.

Let’s see. It’s a federal case, and the judge’s name is Jose E. Martinez. Uh oh. If he’s Cuban, we could be okay. If he’s Mexican or Puerto Rican, the case is as good as dismissed.

He’s 83 years old. He’s…DOMINICAN. What? I have no idea how they vote.

He was appointed by George W. Bush, a nominal conservative. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Looks like he was a JAG officer for a long time. I hope he can handle the truth.

I am going to relax and not worry about the storm. My plan is to rest in God’s presence and let him take care of us.