The Democrat candidate for Florida Agriculture Commissioner, Nikki Fried, is no friend of Florida gun owners. As we reported in our Florida primary election article, Fried backs ever more gun control restrictions and wants to make concealed weapon permits in particular much harder to get. She also supports removing the state's preemption law in favor of allowing cities to pass their own patchwork of gun control laws across the state.
In a video she released this week, Fried openly states that her goal is to make it much harder for Floridians to exercise their Second Amendment rights. And she apparently thinks she's running against the NRA rather than her GOP challenger, Matt Caldwell.
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Oh, and Fried told the Tampa Bay Times that as a gun owner herself, her stance is totally non-partisan.I have a message for the @NRA:
Your control over concealed weapons permits is finished.
As Commissioner of Agriculture, I won't be beholden to youbut to the people of Florida. pic.twitter.com/zxIM60Hqfn
Nikki Fried (@nikkifried) October 1, 2018
Employees of the Department will work for the people of Florida. Neither the Department, nor its employees will carry out the interests of the NRA, or any outside group that seeks to unduly influence the rules that apply to them. For the past eight years the NRA has run Florida's Department of Agriculture. That ends on Nov. 6. Tallahassee politicians have forgotten who they work for. This year, that's going to change.
Fried, in conjunction with Andrew Gillum (Democrat candidate for Governor) and Sean Shaw (Democrat candidate for Attorney General) are pushing the gun control trifecta: the elimination of stand your ground protections, banning "assault seapons" and targeting concealed weapons permits.
Just last week Gillum visited Broward County (Parkland) and attacked Florida's concealed weapons permit system too. And he just happens to be running even with Ron DeSantis in the polls at the moment.
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Additionally, he states on his campaign website that he has
...led the charge for more common sense gun safety policies including a ban on assault weapons, large capacity magazines, and bump stocks; strengthening and requiring universal background checks for all gun sales; closing private sale loopholes; restricting gun access for the mentally ill and known foreign and domestic terrorists; closing the "Boyfriend Loophole" and prohibiting gun possession for those with felony and misdemeanor domestic violence and stalking convictions; and banning the purchase and possession of armor piercing bullets.
Shaw recently told the Miami Herald that
He would use his office as a "bully pulpit" to repeal the Stand Your Ground law.
And back in August he told the Capitol News Services that
"My goal is eradicating the type of violence that resulted in the lives of Floridians being cut too short at places such as the Pulse Night Club, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Clearwater convenience store," said Shaw.
In other words, as a famous politician and dedicated foe of civilian gun ownership once said, elections have consequences.
