After Fiery Debate, ‘Warning Shot’ Bill Passes Florida House

March 21, 2014

After a nearly two-hour debate that focused on Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law, the state House on Thursday easily passed a bill that would expand the self-defense law to include threatened use of force — including showing a gun or firing a warning shot.

The measure (HB 89) by Rep. Neil Combee, R-Polk City, would extend immunity to people who threaten to use force in self-defense — the same immunity already in law for those who actually shoot people in response to perceived threats.

It passed in a 93-24 vote after a floor debate filled with the names of people associated with gun-related crimes that sparked public outrage in Florida, especially Marissa Alexander, a Jacksonville woman who faces the possibility of 60 years in prison for firing a shot into the wall during a domestic dispute.

The proposal has become known as the “warning shot” bill, although Combee said Thursday that people who call it that “do a terrible disservice to the general public if they put the notion out that this bill somehow or other authorizes or encourages warning shots, because it does not. We specifically did not put ‘warning shot’ in the bill.”

The omission of those words bothered Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami, who questioned how HB 89 would have helped Alexander.

Most of the debate Thursday, however, centered on an amendment by House Minority Leader Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, that sought to repeal the “stand your ground” law. While Democrats and Republicans went back and forth about the law, few of the arguments were new.

“I thought we had this settled,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican who sponsored the House version of “stand your ground” in 2005. The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee in November rejected a bill (HB 4003) by Rep. Alan Williams to repeal “stand your ground.”

Thurston filed the amendment, he said in an email before the vote, because under the law, “Innocent people have been killed and the perpetrators have been able to walk away. … ‘Stand your ground’ encourages citizens to use force if they ‘feel’ threatened even if no real threat exists.”

Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, pointed to black mothers who warn their teenage sons, “Be careful, because a black boy’s life is not as valuable.”

The law “may work for your community, but it’s not working for ours,” Fullwood, an African American, said to other House members.

But Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, who famously vowed that “not one damn comma” of the law would be changed, took issue with such arguments by the law’s opponents.

“In 90 percent of the cases where there is an African American decedent, the shooter — or killer — is also African American,” Gaetz said. “While African Americans constitute about 17 percent of the population in the state of Florida, they account for over 31 percent of assertions of the ’stand your ground’ defense. …And African Americans are 8 percent more likely to prevail when asserting a ’stand your ground’ defense than Caucasians.”

He said a wider sample size, not a handful of cases that have attracted attention, would show no racial disparity under the law.

Thurston’s amendment failed in an 83-31 vote.

The final version of Combee’s bill contained an amendment, passed Wednesday, that would limit access to court records in self-defense cases. The amendment, filed by Gaetz, would allow people found to have used justifiable force in a “stand your ground” hearing to have their court records expunged.

The Senate version of the bill (SB 448) could be approved next week.

While Combee’s bill drew heavy debate, another gun-related bill with a distinctive nickname — the “Pop-Tart” bill — passed in minutes by a vote of 98-17. Sponsored by Baxley, the proposal (HB 7029) would prevent children from being disciplined for simulating guns while playing or for wearing clothes that depict firearms. It draws its nickname from a widely reported news story about a Maryland 7-year-old who was suspended from school last year for chewing his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun.

The bill attracted bipartisan support in the House from Democrats, who are often critical of “zero tolerance” school discipline policies, and from gun-friendly Republicans.

Pictured: A bill by Rep Neil Combee and Rep. Matt Gaetz (handshake, center) passed the Florida House Thursday to strengthen the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.

Comments

7 Responses to “After Fiery Debate, ‘Warning Shot’ Bill Passes Florida House”

  1. David Huie Green on March 25th, 2014 8:49 am

    To return to a confrontation armed is creating the threat situation.
    To arm yourself because you realize you may be confronted and threatened again is not creating the situation but may look extremely similar.

    Those who make a habit of threatening unarmed people should not assume those people will remain unarmed victims. Even if the newly protected go to jail (unlikely other than in egregious cases) the bully is still dead — safer just to stop bullying.

    David for better choices
    better people
    better tools

  2. perdido fisherman on March 21st, 2014 11:23 pm

    Marshall, I agree with you 100%, I don’t think anyone should get off if they left the area of the threat and came back with a firearm. Lets just hope the lawmakers didn’t word this law wrong to where you have to fire a warning shot, because that’s something I refuse to do. You threaten my life and i’m taking you down, I’m not going to give someone the opportunity to get revenge or file a law suit because i wounded them when they tried to attack me.

  3. William on March 21st, 2014 10:30 am

    >>William….Typo…….the Minority leader is Perry Thurston.

    Thanks! Looks like our Tallahassee news service was the victim of spell check, and I missed it when reading the copy.

  4. marshall on March 21st, 2014 10:21 am

    The only problem I see is if Marissa Alexander is not found guilty of her charges. I do not consider it a “Warning Shot” when someone has left the Threat Area, recovered a firearm, and then return to the Threat Area to fire a shot. She had already left the area, retreated to the garage to safety, then returned. That is not what I think should be considered Legal under firing a Warning Shot. She may not deserve 60 years, but she should serve time for her actions. She was no longer under threat of injury after leaving the area. If this type of action is found legal, then we could end up having problems with others.

  5. Robert S. on March 21st, 2014 6:34 am

    Good.
    Finally, some sense about not penalizing kids playing by simulating guns or drawing them or wearing clothing depicting firearms.
    Anyone who has ever drawn an outline of the state of Florida has simulated a handgun.
    Thanks for relieving schools and others from having to impose penalties that they knew were improper.

  6. Sam on March 21st, 2014 6:30 am

    Good legislation and common sense in tallahassee. Unusual these days.

  7. E on March 21st, 2014 5:58 am

    House Minority Leader Perry Thursday, D-Fort Lauderdale……………………..

    William….Typo…….the Minority leader is Perry Thurston.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News