BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) today applauded Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for signing legislation that prevents metropolitan mayors in the Sunshine State from filing frivolous lawsuits against the firearms industry.
Gov. Bush signed the legislation Tuesday morning in Tallahassee, making Florida the 26th state to pass a law preventing the kinds of municipal lawsuits over which SAF is currently suing the National Conference of Mayors and individual mayors in over two dozen cities. Miami-Dade officials had already filed such a lawsuit, but it was dismissed, first in 1999 and again on Feb. 14 of this year.
SAF founder Alan Gottlieb called Gov. Bush’s action “the right thing to do for Florida taxpayers.”
“These lawsuits are costing residents of several cities hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to pursue,” Gottlieb stated. “Not surprisingly, they are being thrown out of court, almost uniformly on the grounds that they are not constitutional.
“Gov. Bush has demonstrated the kind of good, common sense for which the voters in Florida elected him,” Gottlieb continued. “By signing SB 412, he has taken a reasonable step to prevent Florida courts from being further clogged by what have so far amounted to legal publicity stunts against not only the gun industry, but more importantly, against the firearms rights of Florida citizens.”
SAF filed a legal challenge against the participating mayors. Initially, the lawsuit was rejected by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. for lack of standing to bring the action. SAF appealed that decision, and a U.S. Court of Appeals hearing is scheduled in September that could reinstate the lawsuit.
“Our legal action,” Gottlieb explained, “is looking more reasonable every day, considering the drubbing that anti-gun lawsuits have been taking in the courts, and in state legislatures around the country. Today’s action by Gov. Bush simply reinforces our position that these lawsuits have no merit, and that they have always been designed to do nothing more than harass a legal, and highly regulated industry into bankruptcy.”