The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments last week challenging a state law that restricts local governments from regulating firearms and ammunition and allows for fines against local election officials who vote for such regulations.
In a case that has attracted national attention in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, local governments and groups favoring laws to fight gun violence are pitted on one side against state officials and the National Rifle Association.
Some commentators viewed justices as skeptical of the local government officials’ arguments, based on their questioning of the petitioners’ attorneys. The petitioners appealed to the state Supreme Court after an appeals court sided with state officials about the law’s legality, but attorney Edward Guedes said he was still hopeful that the high court would hand down a decision minimizing the appeals court’s views.
“We didn't hear from all of the justices, and sometimes justices test the boundaries of a party’s argument because they … need to know the parameters of what they’re going to do,” Guedes, who represents local officials, told the Florida Record. “Difficult questioning is not always a sign of an adverse ruling, though I can’t disagree that a lot of the questions did reflect a degree of skepticism.”
One key issue in the case is the state law’s provision for financial penalties in the thousands of dollars against local elected officials, he said. The law can end up punishing officials merely because of how they represented their constituents on votes dealing with firearms, according to Guedes.
“It’s really troubling,” he said. “It’s so un-American, so contrary to the principles of this country.”
The National Rifle Association, however, considers the law essential to upholding fundamental rights of gun owners and a means to shift potential legal costs from NRA members to localities.
“Petitioners wish to force NRA members and other law-abiding citizens to expend substantial resources challenging ordinances that petitioners know are preempted,” an amicus brief filed by the NRA states. “Petitioners have it backwards. The Constitution shields individual freedoms from infringements; it does not protect localities from the consequences of their regulatory overreach.”
If the high court sides with the petitioners, the NRA said in its brief, citizens would be forced to spend time and money in litigation against dozens of local firearms ordinances in Florida.