For all the media attention about armed teachers, assault weapons, background checks, mental health scrutiny, “Stand Your Ground” and the NRA, the ultimate, underlying firearms issue is our gun culture. You can legally own, of course, and we have an amendment, although anchored in an 18th century militia context, that sanctions as much. Over the years, we’ve added concealed weapon permits such that now nearly 2 million Floridians can legally carry. Each month adds another 17,500 carriers.
So, it’s hardly as shocking as it should be when we read of a woman’s gun going off in a Land O’ Lakes Publix. It was in her purse, which she had knocked off the check-out counter. Her husband was shot in the foot. Then there was the construction worker on a residential roof in Riverview, who was killed when a fellow worker’s gun discharged when he slipped while stepping from his pickup truck. And we need no reminding about the three men who died when they were shot, respectively, in a movie theater, a playground and in front of a Circle A food store.
The bottom line is this: Why the hell are you taking your gun to Publix, to your construction job, to a movie, to a playground or to a convenience store? Because you can?