A MILLION OF THEM

We attended a meeting of our homeowners association. One item was brought up by a woman, a former president of the association, who is starting a Neighborhood Watch group which she claims is perfectly legal for her to do without the sanction of our board of directors. We are an area of 2700 homes.

Her husband also spoke and announced that by the end of this year there will be one million people certified to carry guns and having concealed weapon permits in Florida. We are unfortunately a community filled with NRA advocates and he’s the person heading the group.  A former convict who spent time in Riker’s Prison in New York, he claimed that all gun buyers are subject to strict rules when purchasing guns and have stringent background checks. Obviously, he doesn’t read the “Sports Equipment for Sale” in our local paper.

The day before our meeting, there was an incident in Florida where a Neighborhood Watch member, carrying a gun, shot and killed a young boy who was walking home after purchasing some candy to eat when he and his father watched a basketball game on television that night. It was dark and rainy. The man doing the shooting felt that his life was in danger and so he shot him after he had called the police to report a suspicious person in their gated community. The police advised him not to confront the person and that they were on their way. The young teenage boy was black.

The killer was not arrested because in Florida it’s perfectly legal to kill someone if you feel your life is in danger. This law was pushed by the NRA and is our latest murderer’s excuse for killing an unarmed boy. The resident I have spoken about who lives in our community is also the one pushing a law to allow college students attending our local community college to carry guns on campus. Can you believe he’s an elected State Committeeman of the Republican Party? Well, I guess you can believe it.