OPEN SEASON ON REPUBLICANS!
Scott turns down Tampa's request to ban guns outside GOP convention
By Richard Danielson, Times Staff Writer
Posted: May 02, 2012 08:59 AM
TAMPAā€¯ Gov. Rick Scott has rejected Tampa's request to ban concealed weapons outside the Republican National Convention.
Mayor Bob Buckhorn asked Scott on Tuesday to issue an executive order prohibiting the transportation of firearms in downtown Tampa during the convention, Aug. 27-30.
In a response dated the same day, Scott said Tampa was overreaching. Already, he said, the Secret Service will ban firearms inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, the site of the convention, as well as in a hardened security perimeter immediately around the convention campus.
"You are now requesting that citizens be disarmed in all of downtown Tampa, including in areas across the river, and distant from the convention center and Secret Service safe zone," Scott wrote in a two-page letter to the city.
"It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law," the governor said. "It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach."
Buckhorn said Wednesday he was "disappointed but not surprised."
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