Why does everything in Florida take its sweet time?

Florida—the leisure state, the retirement state, the state where seniors go to slow down, take it easy and get away from it all. This would all be true if Florida didn’t always seem to have something going on—something people in the rest of the country can’t understand. And usually something calling for immediate action.

Florida was certainly quick to step to the plate when they became the first state to pass a “Stand your ground” act in 2005. The law allows a person to use deadly force as a first option not only if they are threatened but even if they merely feel threatened.  This feeling doesn’t have to be substantiated by facts or evidence because its a feeling. Essentially, instead of saying, “the devil made me do it” the shooter could now say he was “hooked on a feeling” and all would be forgiven.

 

Twenty-three states followed Florida’s lead, which could easily be called rushing to action—or at least a rush to please the NRA since there was no great public outcry for such a law.

After a decade on the books a casual observer might conclude that Florida’s law is doing more harm than good—both to the state and to the number of non-threatening but, it-feels-like-they-are individuals that are being killed.

Shouldn’t the state be taking a second look into a law that practically justifies murder rather than prevent it?

Maybe but many are saying, “What’s the rush? Let’s give it time to work.”

My guess is these same people are keeping their fingers crossed, much the way school principals cross their fingers every morning when they turn on the lights in their schools.

Florida’s law hasn’t worked for a black teenage boy who was killed walking home from a convenience store. It hasn’t worked for a black teenage boy who was killed sitting in his car listening to music. Ironically, it also hasn’t worked for a black woman who didn’t kill anyone but fired a warning shot as her stalking, abusive husband approached her.

Again, I’ll pose the question, “Shouldn’t someone be looking into this law?”

And again, many will say, “What’s the rush?”

Apparently in Florida, there is no rush. While cities investigate the crimes Florida says it is looking into the law as is the Federal government. Certainly the rest of the country is looking at the law. But the word on the street is that a decision is still a ways off.

But aren’t all decisions in Florida always a ways off?

In 2000 they had an election and by the next morning every state in the nation had the votes counted except one. Florida took a few more weeks before they threw in the towel and turned the election over to the Supreme Court. Wanting to get the awkward issue behind them as quickly as possible, the Court did the best they could, which essentially boiled down to tossing out the votes of 100-million voters and allowing the election to hinge on the way they themselves had voted on election day. The following two national elections were just as disturbing—both for the time it took to cast a vote and again the time it took to count the vote.

Were things always this slow in Florida?

Always is a long time no matter how you cut it so it’s hard to say if Floridians were always this slow.

We do know that Florida has acted quickly when they’ve want to and they proved it by seceding from the union on January 10, 1861—only 16 years after they had joined the union and almost two months before Lincoln even took office. After Texas it was the second fastest state to renege on its commitment to join the United States. 

I also know that when I was a kid, Jackie Gleason moved his variety show from Hollywood to Florida because he said Florida was the best place to be. After a short opening monologue he would get his show started by shouting, “And away we go” as he zipped across the stage like a man possessed.

But these may be the only two instances of Florida acting with a sense of urgency.

Ponce de Leon, the first Floridian if we don’t count the Indians—and no one ever counts the Indians—landed on Florida’s shores on April 2, 1513. It so happens that this was a Saturday and even back then, little got done on the weekends. Nevertheless he waited almost a full week, until April 8, to claim the state for Spain?

Why not lay a claim down first thing Monday morning? That’s what most of the conquistadors were doing during the great western hemisphere land grab.

Captain John Smith, not a conquistador but definitely a land grabber, landed on Virginia’s shores on April 26, 1607 and planted England’s flag before his boots were dry. Within a month he was building a house a few miles down the road.

What was holding Ponce de Leon back? We’ll never know because they didn’t have cable in those days. What is interesting though, is that Ponce was in Florida searching for the fountain of youth—that magic elixir that would restore and allow him to retain his youth. A lot of people think he was nuts.

Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis would understand Ponce de Leon entirely if they were alive today.

But maybe, just maybe, a magic elixir isn’t the answer. Maybe holding on to one’s youth is as simple as changing a law that makes no sense.

What’s taking so long?