A measure to restore the rights of Florida adults under 21 recently passed another major hurdle. And the reporting on that measure shows just how far anti-gun media will go to try to convince their readers that the measure should be killed immediately.
House Bill 133, sponsored by Rep. Tyler Sirois, was approved by the House Judiciary Committee by a 13-7 vote on December 2. The measure is now eligible for a full vote by the state House of Representatives when members return for the 2026 session.
As background, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is the only right that state governments, and even the federal government, have placed an age limit on. Adults 18 and over can vote, marry, enter into contracts and even serve in the military, where they are issued firearms. Consequently, laws that bar them from purchasing or owning guns are almost certainly unconstitutional.
Florida lawmakers changed the state law back in 2018, and since then have completely banned 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from purchasing a firearm of any kind, for any purpose. As the National Rifle Association’ Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) explains it, the current Florida measure “restores the ability for young adults to lawfully purchase firearms.”
In fact, the headline to a recent NRA-ILA legislative alert stated: “Florida: Pro-Gun Bill Repealing Adult Age Discrimination Advances to House Vote.”
As the old saying goes, however, “There are two sides to every story.” That’s true, but in most cases, one of the sides is wrong. Enter Orlando Weekly, which took a completely different approach to the story.
“Bill that would allow teens to buy guns moves to full House for vote,” that outlet’s headline screamed. For those who just read the headline and move on, that headline makes it sound like Republican Florida lawmakers are trying to make it legal for 13-year-olds to buy any kind of guns they want.
The story, which was actually reprinted from the Florida Phoenix, was an obvious attempt to mislead readers into believing that Republican lawmakers were putting citizens in danger by their proposal. One way I know the headline was intentionally misleading is that the original story in the Phoenix carried the headline: “Bill to lower the age to buy a long gun to 18 now moves to full House for vote.”
An editor at Orlando Weekly chose to run the story, then changed the headline to make the proposal sound worse. Crafting headlines to mislead readers is common in the so-called “mainstream” media, which has a decidedly anti-Second Amendment bias.
Note that the Florida Phoenix story wasn’t without its share of bias. The newspaper prominently quoted anti-gun activists.
“Allowing teenagers to buy high-powered weapons and carry them without a permit in a state without permitless carry is not freedom,” said Jacob Lombardo, a senior at the University of Central Florida. “It is a threat to every student and every family in this great state.”
It then brushed off those opposing the measure, stating: “The only proponents of the measure were individuals representing Second Amendment organizations.”
Oh, so those “individuals” representing millions of law-abiding gun owners don’t even deserve to have a quotation printed in support of the measure. More blatant bias, to be sure.
Judge Edith Hollan Jones, of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, best explained the fallacy of such age limits in an opinion striking down the federal handgun ban for 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds.
“Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” Jones wrote. “The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban.”
You’ll never see that in a “mainstream” media headline.
Read the full article here
