Remember a month or two back, when we told you about that nice young man who set up a gun range in his dad's yard in St. Pete? And by gun range we mean a huge pile of sand with wood pallets stuck to it?
Well, it turns out that range and others like it are still legal in Florida, and will be for the foreseeable future.
On Tuesday the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee voted down HB 623, which would have made it illegal to fire a gun inside or outside on a residential property. The bill's sponsor, St. Pete area State Rep. Darryl Rouson, lives a few blocks away from the gun range house.
He said the law, as it reads now, is too ambiguous. After all, it does say "reckless and negligent" gun shooting is bad, but it doesn't really say what reckless and negligent is. Oh, and you can get fined and removed from office if you try to limit anyone's Second Amendment right.
“This bill brings light to a situation that is, at best, ambiguous to professionals who enforce the law every day,” Rouson said, according to Tampa Tribune Tallahassee reporter James Rosica.
Recently elected State Rep. Chris Latvala, a Republican also from Pinellas, voted in favor of outlawing backyard gun ranges in residential areas because his constituents asked him to, because they don't like the idea of "cooking dinner in the kitchen" while Cleetus next door shoots at empty Natty Ice cans in his backyard.
D'awww. Look at us, Tampa Bay. Isn't our ability to elect representatives who are thoughtful and actually listen to us instead of monied interests just so precious?
Reason lost on an 8-5 margin, though.
Why?
We'll chalk it up to NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer's icy stare from the front row of the audience.
Hammer insisted that the law's fine as it is, really, because "reckless and negligent" is open to interpretation and probably applies to Cleetus and his cohorts, especially when one bets the other two cigarettes he can't hit the neighbor's tire swing.
Patrick Leary, who lives in the St. Petersburg neighborhood that got national attention when Joseph Carannante built the homemade gun range, said he's not happy about the bill failing, but he's not exactly shocked, either.
"It's sad, but unsurprising," he said. "Political cowardice is what rules the day…The great American way right now is just to cave. It's unfortunate."
He added that while the problem in his immediate area has more or less been solved, he still fears for the safety of others throughout the state, and is considering leaving Florida if lawmakers think turning Florida into a no-holds-barred amusement park for gun lovers is okay.
"It's a very callous time where incredibly negligent people run the show," he said. "As soon as my kids are old enough I'm gone from this state. If they can't make decisions like [banning backyard ranges] there's no reason to be here."
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2015.