Proposed county gun law

By Marc Caputo, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 20, 2000

He feeds his baby her formula, tucks his other
child into bed and then grabs a .45-caliber
Glock pistol.

He chambers a bullet and turns out the light.

Armed also with machine guns, shotguns and
rifles, the 35-year-old Palm Beach Gardens
stockbroker has little to fear.

Except the government, he says.

Palm Beach County commissioners are ready
to pass a countywide law Tuesday that would
fine gun owners $500 if they fail to store their
weapons with trigger locks or in a safe when
kids are near.

In the end, it won’t really affect the stockbroker,
who doesn’t want his name used for fear of
burglars, because he already locks up his
dozen weapons in a gun safe when he’s not
using them.

“It’s really the principle of the thing,” he said.
“What boils my blood is that a bunch of people
with no real understanding about guns are
drafting laws about them.”

Palm Beach County’s proposal mirrors a South
Miami law, which Miami-Dade County is also
copying. The National Rifle Association is suing
South Miami and is all but promising to do the
same to Palm Beach County if commissioners
give final approval to the ordinance Sept. 26.

But even if the local governments lose in court, gun owners will still have to
use trigger locks and safes. An 11-year-old state law already requires it.

“Maybe it’s repetitious, but repetition is needed,” said Commissioner Burt
Aaronson, who proposed the trigger-lock law here.

“Evidently, people aren’t aware of the law, so we’ll have our own.”

Aaronson originally wanted the law to apply to all gun owners, regardless of
whether they had children. But the county decided it was best to copy the
South Miami ordinance almost exactly to prepare a better legal defense.

Palm Beach County also changed its proposal to provide a civil fine instead of
a criminal penalty.

That means violators, when caught, would be issued a ticket and appear
before a judge. They wouldn’t go to jail unless they disobeyed the court and
were found in contempt, said Mike Edmondson, spokesman for State
Attorney Barry Krischer.

“It’s a cost issue and an enforcement issue,” Edmondson said. “The county
doesn’t have to appoint a defense attorney and we don’t have to prosecute the
case.”

Krischer’s office, however, is prosecuting two kids who recently came to
school armed.

The office charged 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill as an adult in the shooting
death of his Lake Worth Middle School teacher May 26. Police say Brazill
stole the .22-caliber pistol used in the slaying from the home of a family
friend.

Meanwhile, Samuel Maldonado, 15, a student at Conniston Middle School,
faces charges of possessing a weapon as a minor and possessing a weapon.
West Palm Beach police say he swiped the gun from home March 2 but
couldn’t shoot it because a relative had equipped it with a trigger lock.

South Miami’s attorney, Earl Gallop, argued last week in his motion to
dismiss the NRA’s lawsuit that Maldonado’s case shows why trigger locks are
necessary.

The NRA argues that gun locks might have a place, but another law isn’t
needed. It also questions the safety of all trigger locks, such as 750,000 of
the devices that Master Lock recalled this summer.

The suit revolves around a state law that the NRA says gives only the
legislature — not local governments — the right to regulate the “whole field” of
firearms and to pass “all” future laws.

Called the Joe Carlucci Uniform Firearms Act, it says the state has sole
authority to regulate “the purchase, sale, transfer, taxation, manufacture,
ownership, possession, and transportation” of firearms.

Palm Beach County, South Miami and Miami-Dade think they found a
loophole because the act doesn’t mention “storage.”

“Whole means whole and all means all,” Sen. John Grant, R-Tampa, who
sponsored the Joe Carlucci Act, wrote Florida Attorney General Bob
Butterworth on June 13. “The claim that storage does not equal possession is
contrary to law.”

Butterworth responded July 11 by siding with South Miami. Until then, Palm
Beach and Miami-Dade counties thought the ordinance didn’t stand a chance.
But with Butterworth’s opinion in hand, they took South Miami’s ordinance and
started making it their own.

Butterworth appointed a special assistant two weeks ago to help South Miami
defend itself. His office also plans to write a court brief supporting South
Miami.

Sen. Charlie Bronson, R-Indian Harbour Beach, who championed failed
legislation last year to prevent local governments from suing gun makers, said
he might sponsor a proposal of his own in 2001 to put the word “storage” in
the Carlucci Act.

“If anything like this should be done, it should be done by the legislature,”
Bronson said. “We need uniform laws.”

South Miami’s Gallop says he doesn’t understand that argument. The law is
already on the books across the state, so no one should get up in arms, he
said.

“You really wonder what it is they’re objecting to,” he said.

The law is not a Gestapo-like attempt to bring police into law-abiding people’s
homes, Gallop said. Rather, it’s designed to establish a “standard of conduct”
people should follow.

“What it really is, is a publicity stunt,” countered 60-year-old West Palm
Beach gun owner James McClean.

Unlike the Palm Beach Gardens stockbroker, McClean no longer has children
in the house. Like the stockbroker, he’s suspicious of government. McClean,
who likes the idea of firearms education, supports the county’s recent effort to
sponsor a firearms safety class for students and parents.

But trigger locks are not the way to go, he said.

“Throwing money or laws at a problem won’t solve it,” McClean said. “I lost
count of all the bicycles I bought my children that were stolen by someone
who defeated the lock.”