Opinion by Marion P. Hammer
Unified Sportsmen of Florida Executive Director
NRA Past President
HB-5, Protecting Florida’s Constitution From Outsiders
Florida – -(AmmoLand.com)- HB-5 – Contains an amendment by Rep. James Grant (R) to restore the right of Floridians to control the Florida citizen’s ballot initiative petition process.
The amendment is intended to stop out-of-state millionaires and billionaires from crafting amendments to Florida’s Constitution then sending paid, out-of-state petition gatherers into Florida to collect petition signatures to change Florida’s Constitution for the benefit of out-of-state special interests.
The House voted 105-0 to pass the Grant amendment with 15 House members not voting. The Senate concurred in the Grant amendment and passed the bill 22-17. On June 7, 2019, Governor DeSantis signed the bill into law.
Bill Cotterell a reporter with the Tallahassee Democrat framed it well in his article on June 8, 2019 when he said:
“When it takes effect, the bill will soon require people gathering petitions to register with the state and live in Florida, effectively eliminating a sort of cottage industry that specializes in crafting constitutional amendments and guiding them through the referendum process. It also forbids paying canvassers by how many voter signatures they gather.”
The new process takes effect in 30 days.
These changes are critically important to gun owners since anti-gunners try to subvert the Constitution and Second Amendment rights by imposing gun bans and gun control through the ballot petition process.
About Unified Sportsmen of Florida;
Unified Sportsmen of Florida was organized in 1976 for the purpose of protecting the firearms rights of all law-abiding firearms owners in Florida.
Contact:
Unified Sportsmen of Florida
110-A South Monroe Street
P.O.Box 1387
Tallahassee, Florida 32302
850-222-9518