Wayne LaPierre is still insane.

Edwin Sotomayor says that under Florida law he has the right to take his gun to work, as long as he leaves it in his car. Disney, Sotomayor’s former employer, says not so ― Disney is exempt from the law. Sotomayor was suspended on Friday and fired on Monday. He’s planning to sue.

State Rep. Stan Mayfield, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, admits that at the last minute the law was amended to exempt property owned or leased by employers who have permits for explosive materials under federal law. Mayfield also admits that the law was amended at the request of Disney, among others. He’s livid now, though ― just livid ― because he never imagined that Disney’s lawyers meant property Disney owned or leased. Disney has an explosives permit, of course ― for all those fireworks.

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association is livid, too. LaPierre has been livid about something or other pretty much nonstop for the last thirty years, but this is kind of unusual even for him. We’re talking about Disney here. I think you’re going to find that most parents bringing their kids to Disney World would just as soon the park’s overworked and overheated employees weren’t packing heat. It’s embarrassing enough when little Emma or Ethan breaks down from exhaustion and overstimulation and has conniptions all over Goofy; you don’t want to have to worry whether Goofy has a loaded .45 out in the parking lot, too.

I suspect that Disney can afford some better-than-average legal counsel, and I’ve got a feeling this is a battle neither Edwin Sotomayor nor the NRA is likely to win. Bad press and no likely results. It would probably be better to let sleeping cartoon dogs lie.

Unlike some liberals, I support the right to keep and bear arms. I don’t even think it’s such a bad thing for Sotomayor to have a gun in his glove compartment. My native state has way more than its fair share of criminals and lunatics, and not all of them are in state government. Florida’s violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation; only D.C., South Carolina, Tennessee, and Nevada are more violent than Florida. If you were Sotomayor, you might not want to drive through the streets of Orlando unarmed, either.

The question is, does LaPierre’s temperamental inability to pick his battles help or hurt the cause of gun rights? Another question is, if Edwin Sotomayor loses in court and gets stuck with Disney’s legal fees, is the NRA going to pick up the tab?

---

Digg it!   Stumble it!