NRA wants to take assault weapons ban to Florida Supreme Court

Could one word mean the difference between a vote or no vote? The National Rifle Association does not want you to vote on the possible amendment that would ban “assault weapons.” So the non-profit organization wants to take the matter to the Florida Supreme Court all because of the word “assault.”

The group, Ban Assault Weapons Now, formed after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland. They are the ones pushing to get an amendment on the 2020 ballot that would constitutionally ban assault weapons in Florida.

Aaron Forum, an expert in firearms, said the word, assault, generally has a profoundly negative connotation. “Especially in this business,” he said. “Assault usually means someone doing something to someone else that they don’t want to occur.”

The wording of the amendment is what Forum has a problem with. He wants to see changes to the language to make sure people know exactly what they are voting on. “Clarity is always important,” he said, “because what we don’t want is for the individuals to interpret legislation in a number of ways.”

The goal of the petition is to ban Floridians from possessing any semi-automatic rifle or shotgun capable of holding over 10 rounds of ammunition at once. People WINK News spoke with are split about whether or not the word “assault,” should be dropped.

“To me, it’s just a word,” Blanca Diaz said. “I’m not a sensitive person or anything. People are just too sensitive to everything. Like, why would ‘assault’ be a big issue?”

“Just automatically negative, ‘assaults,'” Kim Gyselinck said. “Just violence. Just not anything good, obviously, come from assaults. Not a good descriptive… to describe it that way.”

The group, Ban Assault Weapons Now, needs over 700,000 signatures to get it on the 2020 ballot. So far, it has raised more than 100,000. The liberal-leaning group also needs to reach its requirement by next February.