Background checks for those buying bullets: South Florida legislators push Jaime's Law - Sun Sentinel

State legislators will try to pass a law in this upcoming session that would require background checks for ammunition buyers in honor of one of the teens killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting.

State Rep. Dan Daley, D-Coral Springs, and a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High graduate, first filed the bill in the 2020 legislative session. It never made it to the House floor. He tried again for this past session, too.

“It’s an uphill battle, but we must do something to address the scourge of gun violence,” Daley said Tuesday afternoon. “Jaime’s Law is a step in the right direction and not an infringement on people’s Second Amendment rights.”

Jaime’s Law is named for Jaime Guttenberg, the 14-year-old dancer who was shot in the back as she tried to run for her life from the third floor.

Current law prohibits someone who can’t buy or possess a firearm from purchasing ammunition. But ammunition vendors aren’t required to run background checks on those buying bullets to make sure they’re allowed to do so.

All someone who isn’t eligible to buy a gun has to do is walk into a store and buy ammunition, said Fred Guttenberg, Jaime’s father, on Tuesday. “It’s against the law for you to do so, but nobody checks.”

He has become a national activist for gun control and gun violence prevention in his daughter’s name. He said he doesn’t oppose gun ownership; his father-in-law is a gun owner. Rather the idea is to make it harder for a “prohibited purchaser” to get ammunition.

“Don’t let us have enough tragedy,” urged Nikki Fried, the state’s commissioner of agriculture, appearing with Guttenberg to promote the bill.

Daley is supported by Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat from Boca Raton, who is also sponsoring the bill. She called it common-sense reform. “If you shouldn’t get a gun, you shouldn’t get ammunition,” she said. “I wish there was more we could do, I really do.”

source: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-jaimes-law-state-bill-20211116-hyzgqv6mozcutg6x4gsaw746vm-story.html

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