Mayor Questions Gun Shows At City Auditorium
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler has tangled with the National Rifle Association more than once.
It took place in Tallahassee when Seiler was in the Florida House.
Seiler’s speech on the House floor against the NRA’s Stand Your Ground Law has been cited by supporters of Tryvon Martin. He’s the unarmed 17-year-old who was shot by George Zimmerman who is using Stand You Ground as his defense.
Seiler got under the NRA’s skin by arguing that Florida needed to protect the water supply from gun range lead poisoning.
Jack Seiler, D-Fort Lauderdale, debates in the Florida House as Franklin Sands, D-Weston, looks on.
Now as Fort Lauderdale’s mayor, Seiler is questioning why the city-owned War Memorial Auditorium allows eight unregulated gun shows-a-year.
The mayor wants an open discussion by the commission. He is questioning whether the city should host such an event in Holiday Park near playgrounds and ball fields packed with children.
“Its not because the show is in a city facility,” Seiler told Browardbeat.com. “I brought it up because of the show’s proximity to the parks, playgrounds, ballfields and the children in them. I would like a full discussion.”
Gun lovers shouldn’t worry, though.
The city has a contract with the show promoters until the end of the year.
“We’re not going to breach a contract,” Seiler said.
So any discussion would only concern a renewal of the contract in 2014.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Hey jack. Are you running????????
January 11th, 2013 at 7:12 pm
Like Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, Broward County has a regulatory ordinance covering gun shows – no other Florida counties even bother to regulate gun shows. Here’s the Broward County ordinance:
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http://library.municode.com/HTML/10288/level3/PTIICOOR_CH18LAEN_ARTVIFIFIYWAPE.html
There shall be a mandatory five-day waiting period, which shall be five days, excluding weekends and legal holidays, in connection with the sale of firearms occurring within Broward County when the sale is a transfer of money or other valuable consideration, and any part of the sale transaction is conducted on property to which the public has the right of access. Some examples of properties to which the public has a right of access are: gun shows, firearm exhibits, wholesale and retail stores, and flea markets. No person shall transfer or receive a firearm to or from another person for five days from the hour of such sale, excluding weekends and legal holidays, when the sale is a transfer of money or other valuable consideration, and any part of the sale transaction is conducted on property to which the public has the right of access. An uninterrupted, continuous, and cumulative aggregate of 120 hours must elapse between such sale and receipt of the firearm, excluding the hours of weekends and legal holidays. A person who violates the prohibition of this Section is guilty of a violation of a county ordinance, punishable as provided in § 125.69, F.S. and the violation shall be prosecuted in the same manner as misdemeanors are prosecuted.
(Ord. No. 1998-45, § 1, 12-8-98)
Sec. 18-97. – Criminal history records check; requirement; prohibition.
(a) Legislative intent. It is the intent of the Board of County Commissioners, in the exercise of its constitutionally-granted authority, to ensure that no firearm is sold, offered for sale, or transferred where any part of the transaction is conducted on property to which the public has a right of access unless a national criminal history background check is conducted. As of the dates of the enactment and effectiveness of this Ordinance, Florida statutory law only allows such checks to be performed for and by licensed dealers, licensed importers, and licensed manufacturers. Therefore, a buyer or seller who is not otherwise a licensed dealer, licensed importer, or licensed manufacturer must use a licensed dealer, licensed importer, or licensed manufacturer as an intermediary to ensure such checks are conducted.
(b) Requirement; prohibition. There shall be a mandatory national criminal history records check done in connection with the sale of firearms occurring within Broward County. No person shall transfer or receive a firearm when any part of the sale transaction is conducted on property to which the public has the right of access until all procedures and requirements of § 790.065, F.S. have been complied with by a person statutorily authorized to conduct background information checks, and an approval number has been obtained and documented, as provided by § 790.065, F.S. In case of repeal or amendment of § 790.065, F.S., no person shall transfer or receive a firearm by sale when any part of the sale transaction is conducted on property to which the public has the right of access until all procedures, requirements, and prohibitions set forth in other federal or state laws relating to background checks have been complied with by persons selling or buying firearms. A person who violates the prohibition of this Section is guilty of a violation of a county ordinance, punishable as provided in § 125.69, F.S. and the violation shall be prosecuted in the same manner as misdemeanors are prosecuted.
(Ord. No. 1998-45, § 2, 12-8-98)
Sec. 18-98. – Non-applicability to holders of Florida concealed weapon permits.
Pursuant to the Florida Constitution, when purchasing a firearm, holders of a Florida concealed weapon permit or license, as prescribed by general law, shall not be subject to the prohibitions and penalties of this article.
January 11th, 2013 at 7:34 pm
I feel the Public Park being so close to the location of the Gun show to are number one most important thing is our children very concerning I unsure what should be done but I think a review is a good idea.
January 11th, 2013 at 8:53 pm
So if there is a five day wait and a background check, what is the problem with the gun show? Sounds like law abiding citizens are going there and buying weapons legally. Nothing evil about that.
Seiler is just showing his left wing knee jerk reaction to people legally owning firearms.
One other thing. Those little weights that everybody has on their wheels to balance them are made of the same evil metal that bullets are made of. Much more lead is brought into our environment by car owners than shooters.
January 11th, 2013 at 8:55 pm
I feel 100x safer at that gun show than I would walking down sistrunk blvd in broad daylight.
I wonder if Ole’ Jack has any guns or a CCW License himself???
January 11th, 2013 at 9:03 pm
@Curious Yellow
Me thinks Hacky Jacky is simply looking for an “hot” issue to stump on to propel him into statewide limelight. Remember he has not much name recognition outside south florida.
The way I see it this mayor doesn’t want his own citizenry to have the right to defend themselves with the use of deadly force. Very Very Sad.
This is one reason why he will lose the governors race. LOL.
January 11th, 2013 at 9:06 pm
jst grandstanding by a governor wannabe. the city wants and needs that revenue from the shows. they’ll cut a deal to hold them in some other city facility so city profits.
and by the way, is the shooting range at Markham Park getting cleaned up and mitigated (of course with our tax dollars) from all the spent shells, etc. on the property all these years?
January 12th, 2013 at 8:27 am
the city makes $4000 a show. these shows are not even monthly. big bucks, not.
January 12th, 2013 at 9:16 am
@4 Sham – Mayor Seiler might be a tad concerned about the sale of assault weapons: “He is questioning whether the city should host such an event in Holiday Park near playgrounds and ball fields packed with children. ‘It’s not because the show is in a city facility,’ Seiler told Browardbeat.com. ‘I brought it up because of the show’s proximity to the parks, playgrounds, ballfields and the children in them. I would like a full discussion.'”
As anyone can easily see from the active discussions taking place on Florida gun owner websites, people who are gung ho about guns simply get the concealed weapon permits, which makes them “unregulated” as far as gun purchases are concerned (Sec. 18-98. – Non-applicability to holders of Florida concealed weapon permits, quoted above). Thus a person with a concealed weapon permit could pick up a bunch of assault weapons at the gun show with no five day wait and no background check, and then proceed with their newly purchased weapons directly to the nearby “parks, playgrounds, ballfields and the children in them”.
January 12th, 2013 at 9:24 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/florida-one-million-gun-permits_n_2287893.html
Florida To Reach One Million Concealed Weapons Permits Next Week, State Says
The Huffington Post
By Joey Francilus and Janie Campbell
Updated: 12/12/2012 5:42 pm EST
[…] The state reports 997,066 valid license holders as of Wednesday, a number Putnam estimated will balloon to seven digits sometime next week — faster than any other state in the nation. One in 17 Floridians already had a license to carry a hidden firearm when the state reduced application and renewal fees in July. […]
According to the Violence Policy Center’s database, 499 people have been killed by permit holders between May 2007 and November 2012, including 14 law enforcement officers, 23 people killed during mass shootings and 35 incidents of murder-suicide. […]
January 12th, 2013 at 9:50 am
Concealed weapon permits are valid for seven years. And due to reciprocity, CW permits from about 30 other states are also valid in Florida. So someone could get a CW permit, develop mental illness 2 to 6 years later, drop by Seiler’s gun show to instantly stock up on guns and ammo, and then proceed to commit a mass shooting…
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http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/FORMS/P-00091-Concealed%20Weapons-0911.pdf
How to Obtain a License to Carry a Concealed Weapon or Firearm
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER SERVICES Division of Licensing
[…] Who Is Eligible To Be Licensed?
A person who meets the following minimum eligibility requirements can obtain a license:
• You must be a United States citizen or a permanent legal resident alien.
• You must currently reside in the United States.
• You must be 21 years of age or older.
• You must be able to demonstrate competency with a firearm.
Who Is NOT Eligible?
There are several disqualifying conditions that will result in the ineligibility of the applicant and the denial of the application. Possible reasons for denial include the following:
• The physical inability to handle a firearm safely.
• A felony conviction (unless civil and firearm rights have been restored by the convicting authority).
• Having adjudication withheld or sentence suspended on a felony or misdemeanor crime of violence unless three years have elapsed since probation or other conditions set by the court have been fulfilled.
• A conviction for a violent crime in the last three years, either misdemeanor or felony.
• A conviction for violation of controlled substance laws or multiple arrests for such offenses.
• A record of drug or alcohol abuse.
• Two or more DUI convictions within the
previous 3 years.
• Being committed to a mental institution or
adjudged incompetent or mentally defective.
• Failing to provide proof of proficiency with a firearm.
• Having been issued a domestic violence
injunction or an injunction against repeat
violence that is currently in force.
• Renunciation of U.S. citizenship.
• A dishonorable discharge from the armed
forces.
• Being a fugitive from justice.
[…] The license is valid for a period of 7 years […]
Are There Any Requirements For Weapon Or Firearm Registration In Florida?
No. Regardless of whether a person chooses to obtain a concealed weapon or firearm license, that person does not have to register any weapons or firearms. There is no weapon or firearm registration requirement in Florida. […]
January 12th, 2013 at 11:13 am
The Mayor has been asked by a number of Fort Lauderdale citizens over the years to look into this gun show. He is responding to those voters who say “ENOUGH”! Go to the show, look around — it’s not for hunters and sports shooting any more. The guns and ‘fire-power’ that is displayed and sold there have no useful purpose in modern life. The country is fed up with this farce that gun violence is protected.
We forget Newtown…. And we can’t wait for the next tragedy to fix our broken gun laws. We are demanding a Plan !
January 12th, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Hope he succeeds as we need a bigger facility for even more vendors and bigger selection. Does he not think that kids and other park users have never seen a gun? By law and operation of the show management, along with all of the local ARMED FL Police on scene, there are NO loaded or operational guns at the show. All arms have to be rendered moot by placing a tywrap or some other non-easily removable method within the mechanism. I think that the baseball bats in the park are far more accessible and potentially damaging then all the blocked guns.
January 12th, 2013 at 2:56 pm
Honorable mayor Jaqueoph & City Commissioners,
I am requesting that you clean up your corrupt Fort Lauderdale Police Department prior to going after law abiding citizens. There is about $400,000.00 plus tips paid to FLPD command staff and officers to provide bodyguard services, this detail was approved by Chief Franklin Adderley. The four hundred thousand is “STOLEN MONEY” the criminal enterprise was operated by Sgt Steven Greenlaw and his fiancee / girlfriend officer Deanne Garcia-Lemieux ( why is Greenlaw allowed to have direct supervision over his subordinate fiancee / girlfriend, exposing FLPD to possible sexual discrimination litigation?) which Internal Affairs Capt Rick Maglione failed to address in his charade investigation. This Rothstein corruption matter happened under your watch, you and the commissioners have swept it under the rug failing to address the simplest of tasks, ensuring that the criminal element of the FLPD is eradicated and the “STOLEN MONEY” is returned.
January 12th, 2013 at 4:02 pm
Is the County law still in effect? I thought the legislature forbid any entity from enacting stricter laws than the State Legislature?
January 12th, 2013 at 10:26 pm
gun guys…you can’t have nukes or tanks…too bad your rights are abridged…now help draw the lines
January 13th, 2013 at 12:12 am
The show was very busy today. I don’t know what the maximum capacity of War Memorial is but it was reached only about an hour after opening. It opened at 9am and by a few minutes after 10am the Fire Dept was only letting people in as other people came out. At 10am there was approximately 400-500 (my estimate)waiting outside to get in by twos and threes. A very well behaved, law abiding crowd, I might add.
By the way, for you people who can never be bothered to get their facts straight, there were NO assault weapons for sale as these need a special permit. Neither were there bazookas or grenades or rocket launchers for sale. There were plenty of AR and AK clones though, which are semi automatic rifles and carbines. Lots of handguns and shot guns too. All legal and all acceptable defensive weapons.
Ha, Ha, a CCW permit IS a background check and as far as being renewable, a driver’s license is a 6 year renewal. Just think of how many bad habits a driver could develop in 6 years. Maybe you should voluntarily renew your DL every year? How can we trust you on the road?
January 13th, 2013 at 2:59 am
Although Section 790.33 of the Florida Statutes was amended in 2011 to impose penalties on local governments who tried to enact their own firearms & ammunition regulations (in fact, the state had preempted the field since 1987 but local governments still passed their own more restrictive rules because the state law didn’t have any penalties for ignoring that preemption), the amended law didn’t affect their authority to require criminal background checks and 3 to 5-day waiting periods for sales conducted on public property (e.g. – War Memorial Auditorium or similar public access facilities) under a 1998 amendment to the Florida Constitution. See Article VIII, Section 5(b).
So the Broward County Ordinance was & still is valid, particularly as applied to gun shows on public property.
January 13th, 2013 at 10:41 am
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/20/557811/expired-assault-weapons-ban-would-have-covered-rifle-used-in-colorado-shooting/?mobile=wt
One of the principal weapons used by James Eagan Holmes in the horrific Dark Knight Rises shooting would have been subject to a series of sharp restrictions under the now-expired federal Assault Weapons ban. The AR-15 rife carried by Holmes, a civilian semi-automatic version of the military M-16, would have been defined as a “semiautomatic assault weapon” under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. If the law was still in force, semiautomatic assault weapons would have been outright banned […]
January 13th, 2013 at 11:03 am
Florida does not regulate assault weapons. The only regulations in Florida on assault weapons come from federal law.
The federal Assault Weapons Ban has expired and is no longer in effect.
Thus it is now legally possible to purchase fully automatic machine guns in Florida after getting the federal permit.
——–
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Florida
Florida has NO law against assault weapons
—–
http://iawca.org/automatic-weapons-faq
Q – What is the procedure for buying a machine gun legally?
A- In general, the buyer must have a clean record with no felony arrests or convictions and no record of violent crime, and in particular no record of firearms law violation. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (the “B.A.T.F.”) requires background checks on persons with drunk driving arrests on their records, as many arrested for D.U.I. are also charged with firearms violations due to an illegal firearm in the vehicle at the time of arrest. Specifically, Public Law 90-351 (18 U.S.C., Appendix), Chapter 44 and Title VII prohibit the following persons from possessing a firearm as defined in the National Firearms Act:
(1) fugitives from justice (any crime);
(2) persons under indictment for or convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
(3) narcotic addicts or unlawful drug users;
(4) mental defectives, mental incompetents, or those who have been committed to a mental institution;
(5) veterans discharged under dishonorable conditions;
(6) persons who have renounced their U. S. citizenship;
(7) aliens illegally or unlawfully in the U. S.; and
(8) persons under 21 years of age. […]
January 13th, 2013 at 3:34 pm
Wikipedia, you should know better:
790.221 Possession of short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, or machine gun; penalty.—
(1) It is unlawful for any person to own or to have in his or her care, custody, possession, or control any short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, or machine gun which is, or may readily be made, operable; but this section shall not apply to antique firearms.
A person who violates this section commits a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
(3) Firearms in violation hereof which are lawfully owned and possessed under provisions of federal law are excepted.
(9) “Machine gun” means any firearm, as defined herein, which shoots, or is designed to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manually reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
So anybody who possesses a machine gun is committing a 2nd degree felony.
January 13th, 2013 at 6:36 pm
1) F.S 790.221 subsection (3) states that “Firearms in violation hereof which are lawfully owned and possessed under provisions of federal law are excepted” – in other words, Florida machine gun owners who are in compliance with the relevant federal law are NOT committing a 2nd degree felony.
2) I specifically said (@20) “it is now legally possible to purchase fully automatic machine guns in Florida after getting the federal permit.”
3) A person who possesses both a valid federal permit and a machine gun in Florida is therefore not in violation of F.S. 790.221 at all.
January 13th, 2013 at 6:54 pm
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2009/rpt/2009-R-0020.htm
[…] Procedure for Acquiring Machine Guns
An unlicensed individual may acquire machine guns, with ATF [that’s the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms] approval, from its lawful owner residing in the same state as the individual (27 CFR §§ 479.84 & 479.105). The transferor must file an ATF application, which must be completed by both parties to the transfer and executed under penalties of perjury, and pay a $200 transfer tax to ATF. The application must include detailed information on the firearm and the parties to the transfer (26 USC § 5812 & 27 CFR § 479.84).
The transferee must certify on the application that he or she is not disqualified from possessing firearms on grounds specified in law. He or she must submit with the application (1) two photographs taken within the past year; (2) fingerprints; and (3) a copy of any state or local permit or license required to buy, possess, or acquire machine guns (27 CFR § 479.85).
An appropriate law enforcement official must also certify whether he or she has any information indicating that the firearm will be used for other than lawful purposes or that possession would violate state or federal law (27 CFR § 479.85).
Approvals and Denials. Anyone acquiring a machine gun must, as part of the registration process, pass an extensive Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal background investigation. If ATF denies an application, it must refund the tax. Gun owners must keep approved applications as evidence of registration of the firearms and make them available for inspection by ATF officers. […]
January 13th, 2013 at 6:56 pm
Okay, maybe I missed the nexus between the gun show and the children playing ball near by.
Is the mayor afraid that the children will look out of their mother’s car and see a gun? Perhaps that a gun loon from the show will go postal? But if the Mayor is worried about someone going postal, couldn’t they do it on a day when there wasn’t a gun show?
January 14th, 2013 at 7:07 am
You were getting there. As a condition of owning a machine gun lawfully, you must make it available for inspection on demand. That means law enforcement can show up at your house at any time and demand to inspect your weapon as a condition of ownership. This is in addition to getting a LE sign off prior to purchase, according to what you just posted. What more do you want?
January 14th, 2013 at 11:57 am
Maybe they should ban autos in Holiday Park. I drunk could plow through a fence and take out a whole soccer squad.
January 14th, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Until gun shows employ expanded background checks on prospective buyers, no municipality should allow these folks to peddle their wares in publicly owned arenas, auditoriums, etc. Let the people who want to sell guns to folks without a background check rent a banquet room at a local hotel. Most normal law abiding folks buy a gun from a licensed dealer. A good number of these types that frequent gun shows are the tea party militia types and people who would not pass a background check.