Right now, Florida law says you have to try and flee before you are able to use force in any situation where you are attacked. A new bill which just passed the Florida legislature and is just waiting for Jeb to sign will change that. Now, if you’re walking around and you feel threatened by someone – you know, if he like looks at you funny – you can shoot him in both kneecaps and then step on his neck and it’s all perfectly legal.
Now, some people are saying this is going to change Florida into the Wild West… but they’ve said that about every gun bill. If people are allowed to own handguns, it will be just like the Wild West. If people are allowed to carry concealed, it will be just like the Wild West. If the assault weapons ban expires, it will be just like the Wild West (‘cept with assault rifles). And I’ve always been like, “Yay! The Wild West!” and I imagine myself strolling through town in a poncho, and, as soon as someone looks at me funny, I take a puff of my cigar and then sweep the poncho over my shoulder to reveal the six-shooter at my hip. But, so far every time I’ve done that, people laugh at my poncho, and, when I reveal my gun, the police get called. I tell them, “But I was told it was like the Wild West now!” but they just beat me with nightsticks and handcuff me. Anyway, if you want more details, talk to my lawyer.
This time I’m assured, though, that things will be just like the Wild West because this new bill gives a gun owner more right to use force and just shoot people willy-nilly because he didn’t like the looks of them. That’s cool because I have the hat and the gun but I need a new poncho because I got spaghetti sauce on my last one. Soon as Jeb signs that bill and I get a new poncho, it’s going to be so cool, though.
And does anyone think that this bill will cause ninjas to roam freely throughout Florida? I’m not sure how that would happen, but it would be the ultimate in super-awesomeness. My dream is to be driving to work and have my tire suddenly blow out. I come out of the car to inspect it, and find a ninja star. Next thing I know, I’m in a full-out kung fu fight with ninjas jumping down from the trees.
“Ha! Your kung fu is weak!” I will tell them after defeating them.
“That was some fancy fighting moves, pardner” someone will say mockingly. I’ll turn to see three shady looking cowboys, their hands perched over their guns.
“You should see my shooting,” I’ll say, take a puff of my cigar, and then sweep my poncho over my shoulder revealing my peacemaker.
One cowboy will move to draw, but I’ll be quicker, shooting all three of them before any gets a shot off. Then I’ll get the manual out of my Hyundai Santa Fe and try and figure out where all the stuff is for changing the tire. And when I get to work and my boss is like, “You’re late!” I’ll answer, “Had to take out the trash.” And then I’ll get some coffee and check the DrudgeReport on my office computer.
That would be so sweet!
So it better be true this time about everything turning into the Wild West. The anti-gun folks have cried wolf so many times and gotten my hopes up, so they better be right this time. Otherwise, I’m coming after those fools, because, to me, they look a little threatening.
Frank J. is a syndicated columnist whose columns appear worldwide on IMAO.us and is the author of such books as “Proper Poncho Care” and “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned from ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'”.
Yeah, my lawyer couldn’t get me cleared either. Stoopid gun laws.
That’s it I’m moving to Flordia. I have to drive almost an hour just to shoot here in California. Looks like I can just put my bed by the window and shoot in Florida. Sounds like a place a bible-thumping, gun-toting, right-wing fascist like me can really get some trigger time in.
At least Frank picked one of The Best Movies of All Time to learn everything from.
Lee Van Cleef was coolness personified.
xtreme, your first mistake is living in california. i have to drive all of 4 minutes to get to either 1) my buddy’s house who has a range in his ‘yard’ (more field than yard) or 2) my parents house who have a field next to their house and are putting a small range in this summer.
GO INDIANA!
ha, indiana hasnt even picked a time zone yet. welcome to the 19th century…
In case you weren’t paying attention, Citizen Grim, the 19th century is exactly what Frank is advocating. The Western half of the 19th century, anyway. And Arizona, which counts as part of the Wild West, doesn’t do daylight savings time either. So there.
Frank, obviously you should have moved to Texas instead of having SarahK move to Florida.
Xeno – depends on where you live in Indiana, honey. Bloomington? Not a range for miles and miles and miles. Closed the one in the union. Damn hippies.
Your state really rocks the heck out of my state.
mopes
Is that a real poncho, or a Sear’s poncho?
Beware of archaic Zappa references!
I gots me a range in my yard too, gotta love the wild west(ern PA) . . .
Sounds like Texas law is a little more favorable than the Florida law, but if that bill does pass, and I were a ninja, I’d think twice about throwing a star at somebody with a poncho and a cigar.
They passed a law here in Minnesota that states that if you apply for a permit to carry the sherrif MUST give you one if you qualify rather than he MAY. The left howled that blood would flow in the streets of Minneapolis and that we were bringing back the days of the Wild West… not much to report however… I like the subjectivity of your law better…LOL! Funny stuff as usual, Frank!
Please export some hardy and hale Floridians to colonize Ohio and kick some sense back into our gun laws. kthx.
Frank,
I’d like to include this editorial in the next Carnival of Cordite.
Thanks,
Gullyborg
I’m so glad that this law passed. libbys have no backbones, they are cowards plain and simple. That’s why they can’t seem to fathom why a law-abidng citizen would want to defend their families in their own homes.
P.S.-Yes (any moonbats they may be reading this) I am a NRA member and proud of it.
FrankJ needs to smile in his pictures.
your about as stupid as those freeks over at the DU. Except your on the right fringe, instead of the left.
Weak kung-fu indead!
really?-Really, you should learn to f’n spell before you start throwing the word stupid around. Its ‘you’re’ not ‘your’ and its ‘indeed’ not ‘indead’. Asshat!
Please, there’s no need to have to attack his spelling. We can all see he’s an idiot, and just attacking words that are misspelled shows that you have nothing better to go on.
See, in an intelligent analysis of his comment, you can see that he mentioned weak kung-fu. This shows he has a kung-fu inferiority complex, perhaps because he was flying-tornado-kicked repeatedly as a child.
Perhaps we should locate his address and show him what real kung-fu is like?
I just have to say that that was hi-larious and darned awesome.
Did someone insult my kung fu? Then we must do battle!
The Old West, ah those sweet halcyon days when men were respectful of old women, and not just because they might be packing enough firepower to blow a buffalo to giblets from 30 yards away.
…or maybe because of that.
Generally an armed populace is a more polite populace. Does kind of remind me of that one scene from the Beverly Hillbillies tha I adore though.
Clampets: innocently give some gang-bangers the finger misinterpretting it as a greeting
Gangbangers: Hey! Look at this old man! points their pistols at the Clampets
Jed Clampet: stand up from the back of his truck and points his huge rifle at the car, speaking with a jovial conversational tone Thats really nice, son! This is what I carry!
GB: Th-thats nice. sheepishly back off and drive away
I might be misremembering. Haven’t seen it in forever. And sorry about the spam.
My thoughts exactly.
I’d like to know if the poncho has a pouch for concealing a deadly ninja kitten.
Dan, sorry about that I should have recognized his kung fu inferiority complex. Thank you for correcting my bad manners.
Grim, screw you, not having daylight savings rocks.
Tracey, that is true. I still have to drive a half-hour to get to a ‘real’ pistol range, but as far as just going out and shooting at personal ranges or empty fields….pretty much out my backdoor. I’m up around South Bend, so I can’t speak for Bloomington though.
Regardless, Indiana is one of the more pro-2nd Amendment states.
Frank – But you still won’t be able to use your “peacemaker” to defend yourself from intimidating monkeys.
It was not a problem, Good Ol Boy. It’s my job to hang around here and one day start spontaneously using the comments section for no reason at all.
Now, person who happens to also share my name minus a “T” and an “X”- I was intrigued by your query involving a pouch to conceal a deadly ninja kitten. Wondering if this is at all possible, I began drawing a concept poncho for myself. The results were disappointing.
concept drawing of the poncho
As can be seen here, due to the thermonuclear explosive, the kitten’s deadly ninja blade protrudes from the poncho. Of course, this illustration is not to scale and involves many factors, the size of the kitten, blade, thermonuclear explosives, and the amount of illicit substances inhaled by the wearer approximately six hours beforehand.
You know, I do custom ponchos. You’d have to provide your own kitten and thermonuclear explosive, though.
Down here in Georgia, we are also a MUST issue state. That is, if you apply for a concealed carry permit, they must issue it to you unless you have a criminal record that prevents it.
I can’t believe some folks have to drive for over an hour to get some trigger time. There’s even an indoor range about 5 blocks from my house so I can shoot in the air conditioning during the summer and under a roof while it’s raining. That is, if I can’t find some suitable piece of land within 15 minutes of my house that will double as a range. If I’m really in dire straits I can drive about 20 minutes to the in-laws 115 acres (outside of city limits) and shoot until my finger falls off.
It’s the FrankJ we know and….
Perhaps if enough states do this, Illinois, New York, and California will go cry in a corner.
HAH!
Come to D.C., my friends. There are areas (many) within a 15-mile radius of the White House where you MUST carry a concealed RPG or a few grenades just to cross the street.
Sure hope that ‘armed society is a polite society’ bit is true. We could use a bit more politeness here on the ‘Wild West’ east coast (see US map and look for Florida..).
Especially we could use more politeness from the tourists…
On a more serious note, I’m in favor of this. Florida has a criminal element that preys on those same tourists I’m mocking above, and those criminals tend to attack in ways that were not covered by previous legislation.
“That’s cool because I have the hat and the gun but I need a new poncho because I got spaghetti sauce on my last one.”
Frank, even though they are called “spaghetti westerns”, there is usually no actual spaghetti involved.
Actually it looks like the Florida Law is somewhat better that the Texas law. The Florida Law gives the police more “cover” and leeway to NOT arrest a person who did a good selfense shooting. In Texas the cops pretty much have to treat any shooting as a homocide the odds of you being arrested are pretty high, and often it ends up going to a grand jury even on what they suspect is a good shooting. I’m hoping certain aspects of the Florida law will be enacted in Texas.
Damn, they closed the range at the IU Student Union? I had mucho good times there, popping caps with Old Slabsides.
Well the Alumni Association can forget any more contributions from Me. No more $5s, that’s for damn sure!
Slab
Ohio’s law let’s you keep a gun in the glovebox of your car, but you can still get arrested for carrying even with the permit if a building has a ‘liberals protected here’ sticker.
Plus winter sucks. Florida looks better all the time.
One of the things I like about the Texas law is there are darn few places you can’t carry. A couple of tweaks here and there (such as toad recommends) will make Texas the safest place on the planet!
Frank needs to write a book on proper ponocho care. Married men need to know how to care for their ponocho.
Ha! You are too hilarious. I’ve been sitting here at work in my little cubie and people can hear me laughing. Thanks though… this made my day. 🙂
Forget the poncho, get to Cabelas and get you a genuine Australian oilskin coat. You can conseal a sawed-off double barrel 10 gage under one of these.
Geez, xtremerightwing, if you’re all bummed because you’ve got to drive an hour to your range, and you’re thinking of moving to Florida, the least you could do is stop in Arizona. I mean, you’ll probably need gas here anyway, so why not stop for a while?
Although Alaska and New Hampshire (or is it Vermont–I forget) might disagree, we’re about as gun-free as you can get. Concealed Carry-Check; Open Carry-Check; Class III-Check. At the IDPA match I was at earlier this week there was a guy running an MP-5 a couple lanes down. Hey, we even got a bunch of armed yahoos down on the border this week makin’ it fun for the illegals. For those interested in four seasons, we do get some snow…just not unreasonable amounts of it. We’ve got mountains, lakes, and lots of beach (but very little surf). We chuckle at all you crazy guys who insist on moving your clocks around. Daylight Savings Time? I mean, C’mon. What are you really saving? Are there not still 24 hours in every day? Can anybody explain this mass compulsion to move your clocks around? I didn’t think so.
Well, Florida’s better than say New York, or Massachusetts. Yeah, they’ve got an ocean and a Gulf, plus the internet’s cutest couple–so they’ve got that goin’ for them. But, man that California-Florida drive is looooong.