Cheers, mild spell; jeers, gun gains
Goodbye, hurricane season (we hope)
Cheers to Wednesday’s end of another hurricane season, even if one finally made landfall in Florida after an 11-year run of good luck. The busy season, with 15 named storms, was also the longest, dragging on from January with Hurricane Alex to just a week ago with Hurricane Otto.
Manatee County and the Tampa Bay region got off relatively easy. Hurricane Hermine drenched Manatee County in early September. Dozens of county residents and business owners filed for disaster relief. The $53 million Ware’s Creek flood mitigation project was designed to cut down on flooding during heavy storms, but Hermine proved too powerful. Ware’s Creek overflowed its bank and crept up the slopes of creek-front properties. Rubonia flooded. The storm also forced another suspension on construction of the new groins on Cortez Beach.
Hermine hit Florida’s West Coast hardest north of here, from Hillsborough County to the Panhandle.
In June, Tropical Storm Colin skimmed by the area, but flooded several streets and damaged Bradenton Beach’s floating day dock. Ware’s Creek escaped flooding from the intermittent heavy downpours.
Colin became the first storm system to hit Florida, flying across the Panhandle.
The powerful Hurricane Matthew forced Manatee County schools to close out of an abundance of caution, and both Bradenton and Manatee County issued states of emergency. The county opened shelters and distributed sandbags. Since Matthew took aim at Florida’s East Coast, only the outer bands of the storm brought rain and winds to Manatee County. But the shelters took in several hundred evacuees from the East Coast.
Once again, Manatee County escaped major damage, but the storms that did impact the area should be remembered as a warning to always design a survival and escape plan ahead of every hurricane season.
The gun battle
Interesting statistics deflate the notion that more and more guns make Floridians safer. But we can expect gun-rights advocates, especially the passionate Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, to have significant influence in Tallahassee before and during the Legislature’s 2017 regular session.
The first bill has already been filed and would permit concealed-carry permit holders to bear their arms in airport terminals.
As a member of the House, Steube fought hard for measures to permit guns at public meetings, in school and on college campuses. He told the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau that he is drafting broad legislation to expand the rights of concealed-carry permit holders.
This week Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, selected Steube as chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, which gives the Sarasota lawmaker considerable clout in which to push his agenda.
Since Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law was enacted in 2005 under then-Gov. Jeb Bush, gun-related homicides jumped 31.6 percent. The law allows the use of deadly force in self-defense, which one Florida police chief described as a “license to murder.” The Wall Street Journal reported this week that “a 2013 academic study that compared 20 ‘stand your ground’ states with states where the duty to retreat still exists found an 8 percent increase in homicide associated with the laws.”
Whether you believe that “stand your ground” laws encourage violent confrontations, or that self-defense is a fundamental right unjustly hindered by a duty to retreat in the face of a threat, Florida appears to be the path to more guns in more places. Jeers to that.
Quote of the Week
“This is one of the worst cases of civil rights violations that I’ve seen. ... Manatee County has got to step up to the plate. We need a local office here where we can file complaints locally.”
Manatee County Commissioner Charles Smith, commenting on the situation at Bayside Villas, where some low-income tenants who have complained about the dreadful conditions of the apartments are being evicted.
This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Cheers, mild spell; jeers, gun gains."