Our View – Give it back (May 22)

Published 1:55 pm Thursday, May 21, 2009

The timing is bad even by state lawmakers’ standards. Just as Floridians are seeking concealed weapons permits in record numbers, the legislature pulls the plug – kind of.

Lawmakers, in a last-minute bid to balance the budget, siphoned off $6 million from the agency that administers these permits. According to state Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson, the loss will seriously hamper the ability of the Division of Licensing to do its job.

“As you are well aware,” Bronson wrote Gov. Charlie Crist recently, “the Division has unprecedented growth in the number of people applying for licenses, resulting in a tremendous backlog of applications to be processed … We simply cannot process all of these applications in a timely manner ….”

Whatever money is available, says Bronson, needs to go toward hiring more workers and buying better computers.

And talk about unintended consequences. By law, the state must issue a concealed weapons permit within 90 days of receiving a completed application requesting one. In the end, some permits may have to be issued without even a criminal background check. Nobody wants that.

Governor, we join Commissioner Bronson in urging you to veto this wrongheaded legislation. Simply put, lawmakers took money they shouldn’t have. Make them give it back.