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2020 Ballot initiative to ban "Assault Weapons" - progress tracking

23K views 89 replies 28 participants last post by  ArthurDent 
#1 · (Edited)
I decided to start this thread to keep track of the progress of the Ban Assault Weapons Now (BAWN) drive to get an AW ban Florida constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2020.

Some high level numbers:

Number of signatures necessary to begin the "review" process for the initiative: 76,632
Number of Congressional districts that must meet "threshold" to begin the "review" process for the initiative: 7

Number of signatures necessary to get it on the ballot: 766,200
Number of Congressional districts that must meet "threshold" to get it on the ballot: 14

Due date for all signatures to be submitted: February 1, 2020

A quick explanation about the "threshold" requirement. To keep all of the voters in one area from running roughshod over everyone else, in order to "make review" and then later to get on the ballot the initiative must surpass a certain signature threshold for a certain number of Congressional districts. To qualify for review the district threshold is 10% of 8% in 25% of districts. To qualify for ballot placement the district threshold is 8% in 50% of districts. I'm not going to try to explain that here. Go read this guide if you're curious and want to know more about that.

Once an initiative has passed the number of signatures for review and those signatures meet the distribution threshold in 7 Congressional districts, then the review process begins. The Florida Supreme Court rules on whether or not the proposal meets the requirements of the constitution and state law, and the Financial Impact Estimating Conference prepares a financial impact review.

Assuming the proposal passes those hurdles then it has to gather the required number of signatures to get on the ballot and those signatures must meet "threshold" in a larger number of Congressional districts.

OK, that's the process in a nutshell. If you want to know more, check out this guide.

High level totals: link
District totals for "threshold" analysis: link

With that taken care of, here is where BAWN stands now. I will edit this post periodically and add updated numbers to show progress.

As of 2019-07-23:
Gathered 97,985 of 76,632 required for review (requirement met)
Distribution threshold met in 16 of 7 districts required for review (requirement met)

Gathered 97,985 of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 193

Synopsis: Cleared all requirements for review. Still quite a ways away from meeting the requirements for ballot placement.

As of 2019-08-01:
Gathered 99,592 (up 1,607) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 184

Synopsis: None of the districts are anywhere near meeting the signature requirements for "distribution threshold". To be put on the ballot 14 districts must meet surpass the distribution threshold signature requirement.

As of 2019-09-01:
Gathered 104,991 (up 5,399) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 661,209 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 153

Synopsis: In one month BAWN has only gathered 5,399 new signatures. None of the districts are anywhere near meeting the signature requirements for "distribution threshold". To be put on the ballot 14 districts must meet surpass the distribution threshold signature requirement. With 5 months remaining it seems they have a lot of ground to cover to qualify for the ballot. And that's assuming that the Supreme Court of Florida approves the language at all.

As of 2019-10-01:
Gathered 111,167 (up 6,176) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 655,033 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 123

Synopsis: In one month BAWN has only gathered 6,176 new signatures, scarcely better than last month's total of 5,399. As was true last month, none of the districts are anywhere near meeting the signature requirements for "distribution threshold". With only 4 months remaining it would take a sudden, massive burst of progress for them to have any chance at all of making the ballot. Additionally the Florida Supreme Court still has not ruled on whether the amendment language is impermissibly misleading. I'm going to go ahead and call this and say there's no way in hell they are going to make the ballot, but I guess anything is possible.

As of 2019-11-01:
Gathered 115,052 (up 3,885) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 651,148 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 92

Synopsis: It seems almost pointless that BAWN has submitted any signatures in the last month since they have only submitted 3,885. If they are going to make a serious effort to get this on the ballot next year they need to be turning in around 200,000+ a month now, not a few thousand. This month's total is less than the prior, and I would not be surprised if next month's total is zero. At this point they are wasting their time and money to continue to attempt to gather signatures (in my opinion). Maybe they are hoping for another mass shooting in Florida to put some wind in their sails. I don't know.

I'm going to stick with my call from last month when I said there's no way in hell they are going to make the ballot, barring some tragedy they can capitalize upon between now and 2/1.

As of 2019-12-04: (updated a few days late as I've been sick)
Gathered 123,831 (up 8,779) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 642,369 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 59

Synopsis: This seems dead. I don't know why they even bother continuing to turn in signatures.

As of 2020-01-01:
Gathered 130,232 (up 6,401) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 635,968 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 31

Synopsis: To me it seems statistically impossible for them to reach the threshold in time. I'll be happy in 31 days when we can put a nail in the coffin of this terribly misguided effort.

As of 2020-02-01:
Gathered 147,042 (up 16,810 - the best month they've had since I started tracking) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 619,158 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 0

This is dead. Finally. They might try again in 2 years but it is a lot harder to get citizen initiatives on the ballot now. If they couldn't get this on the ballot now I wouldn't think they'd have any more luck in 2 years when Parkland is an even more distant memory - unless they get lucky and there is another tragedy for them to attempt to capitalize upon.
 
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#2 ·
Great thread Brian! :thumsup

:couchpopcorn
 
#4 ·
Excellent thread Brian. Wonder if the new petition initiative requiring florida residents etc, slowed it down.
 
#11 ·
Not a typo, though perhaps not the best way of providing the numbers. What it is intended to convey is that they have to meet threshold in 7 districts to qualify for review, and they have met threshold in 16 districts - so way more than enough to qualify for review.

And in case anybody is wondering why/how they have met threshold for review in 16 of 7 districts, but for ballot placement they have met threshold in 0 of 14, that's because the threshold is higher in each district for ballot placement and so far they have not achieved the "ballot placement" number of required signatures in any district yet.

That last point (not having met the ballot placement threshold in any district yet) seems encouraging. Looking at the district-by-district breakdown their biggest numbers are in Southeast Florida. The thresholds required to get on the ballot are all in 21,000 to 34,000 range and their best district total so far is 7,776 of 32,305 in Hillsborough, Manatee, and Sarasota (District 16). That's less than 1/4th of the way there in their best district. And they are only about 12.7% of the way there in the overall number of signatures.

With the additional obstacles put in their way by the change in the ballot initiative law it seems like they have a tough hill to climb. I used to worry that maybe they were holding back signature sheets in order to keep the count deceptively low, but the new law requires that they submit all sheets within 30 days of being signed by the voter.

All petitions must be submitted by February 1st, 2020. I'm going to edit the OP to reflect that deadline and put the number of days remaining until the deadline.
 
#7 ·
What does the proposed law stipulate?

And... how many here would comply?
 
#12 ·
Thanks for the clarification, Brian.

I also believe the title of the amendment is deliberately misleading since it is really a bill mandating registration of pretty much all semi-automatic long guns.
 
#17 ·
The Supervisor of Elections in each county (the county for the voter who signed) verifies the signatures against the voter records to make sure they are legit and the campaign for the initiative has to pay for that validation work at a cost of 10 cents per signature or the actual cost, whichever is less.
 
#20 ·
From what I can tell, the proposed law would ban all new sales of evil black rifles, while the guns already in possession would have to be registered.

Basically what they did in NY and CT. But, the registration compliance rate in those states has been 6% and 12% respectively! :grin
 
#23 ·
I applaud her for her efforts. We'll see if her arguments are persuasive to the Florida Supreme Court or not. All along I have hoped that the Florida Supreme Court would put an end to this ballot initiative and we'd not even have to worry if BAWN can get enough signatures.

I noticed that AG Moody's arguments centered around the amendment language being insufficient to allow voters to make an informed decision, as opposed to arguing that it is violative of the U.S. Constitution. I was hoping that the ballot initiative would be stricken due to the latter, but if the former is enough to put it in the trash bin I'll take it.

If the Florida Supreme Court does kill the ballot initiative I would expect that the BAWN folks will not attempt to start over with new language immediately due to timing considerations. Signatures gathered are only good for 2 years and must be submitted by February 1st in the year of the election during which the initiative is to appear on the ballot. That would mean if they were going to come up with new language and try again it would be silly to begin before February 1st (or 2nd) of 2020 so that the signatures would be valid through February 1, 2022 to qualify for the ballot in 2022 (the next possible opportunity).

That said, I think they probably know that public support for this nonsense peaked at the time of Parkland and has been waning since. I might be deluding myself but I'd like to think that this was their one and only chance to be successful with this.

Hopefully it will fail.
 
#25 ·
I was going to update this at 1 month intervals starting 1 month from the date of the first post (which would have been 8/23) but I decided it made more sense to get on a schedule of updating it on the first of each month since the deadline is February 1st of 2020.

I've gone ahead and edited the OP and put an update for 8/1.

With two mass shootings in less than a week I wonder if this will help BAWN in their drive for signatures? I guess we'll see.
 
#27 ·
Not a formal update as I'll do formal updates on the 1st of each month, but with all the increased intensity on "assault weapons" as of late I figured I'd take a look and see if their signature numbers had surged.

On 8/1 they had 99,592. Today the website says they have 104,070 (up 4,478). They need 766,200, so they have 662,130 to go.

That seems like a tall hill to climb having only roughly 5 months left. I would think that right now would be the best time to be able to get signatures for this as public interest is high. Then again, they have 30 days from the date-signed to submit signatures so perhaps in 30 days we'll see a big spike in their numbers.

Anyway, I was curious how things were going for them so I figured someone else might be as well and I should post some interim numbers.
 
#30 ·
The signatures have to go to the Supervisor of Elections for the county where the elector (the voter who signed the petition) is registered and the Supervisor of Elections charges the petitioner a per-signature fee to validate each signature.
 
#34 ·
FROM: Marion P. Hammer
USF Executive Director
NRA Past President


The so-called "assault weapons" ban that is proposed for a constitutional amendment to be on the 2020 Election Ballot bans the possession of:

“any semiautomatic rifle or shotgun CAPABLE of holding more than ten (10) rounds of ammunition at once, either in a fixed or detachable magazine or other ammunition feeding device.”
The fact is, any rifle or shotgun that is "capable" of accepting or using, a detachable magazine that holds 10 rounds or less is also "capable" of accepting a magazine or magazine extension of any size. Magazines with a capacity of 3 all the way up to 100 rounds are in common use throughout the United States.
Therefore, ALL semiautomatic rifles and shotguns "capable" of using a detachable magazine or fixed magazine would be banned. UNLESS YOU REGISTER THEM WITH THE GOVERNMENT within a year -- so the government knows who has guns and how many. Otherwise you can be arrested, charged and prosecuted for felony possession of so-called "assault weapons" and your guns confiscated.
That means all Ruger 10-22 semiautomatic rifles, all Remington Model 1100 shotguns, all Benelli shotguns, all semiautomatic hunting rifles, all semiautomatic plinking and target rifles -- you get the picture. If it is semiautomatic, kiss it goodbye.
Firearms that you legally purchased, legally owned, legally used, and legally possessed for years could suddenly be banned and you could end up in prison for merely continuing to possess your own property if you fail to register with the government. History shows that when the government knows who has guns and where they are, they can come and confiscate them.
Remember, once convicted of felony possession of a so-called “assault weapon,” then YOU LOSE ALL OF YOUR GUNS because felons can’t possess ANY GUNS, Period.
Further, manufacture and sale is also banned since there is no exemption whatever for possession due to manufacturing, distribution or sale.
Simply put, over 150 manufacturers may be forced to shut down and move out of Florida if they manufacture semiautomatic rifles or shotguns. Goodbye jobs, goodbye Pittman-Robertson money for youth gun safety programs, goodbye retail gun shops, HELLO, major damage to the job market and Florida's economy.
A recent Gallup poll shows that over 40% of households ADMIT to owning at least one gun. That number is probably much higher since we don't like telling pollsters what we own. In Florida with a population of over 22 million, that means 9-10 million Florida households could lose their home defense firearms if they are semiautomatic rifles or shotguns.
At an August 16th hearing, sponsor and supporters of the "Assault Weapons" Amendment said the following:
“We don’t think it bans Ruger 10-22 rifles, they’re just .22s.” --BUT IT DOES!!!!!
"My Benelli shotgun is beautiful and shouldn't be banned. -- BUT IT WILL BE!!!!!
“We don’t want to shut down your shooting range and gun shop.” -- BUT IT WILL!!!!!
Welcome to reality. What they think or what they say they want doesn’t matter.
ONLY the words matter and the proposed amendment will ban Ruger 10-22s, Benelli Shotguns, Remington Model 1100 shotguns and all semiautomatic rifles and shotguns with detachable or fixed magazine.
What matters is what the language says and does. And past experience has shown us that the government will enforce it as badly as they possibly can.
BOTTOM LINE: The sponsors and supporters either don’t know what the heck they are doing or they are lying.

AND your Second Amendment rights are in danger. PERIOD.
 
#35 ·
Without trying to hijack this thread & maybe the idea deserves its own discussion.
Why wouldn't we try to get our own ballot initiative for OPEN CARRY on the ballot?

I'm not a fan of this process of mob rule but it would seem we have enough CC in the state to meet the requirements.
Play the gun grabbers own game against them?
 
#37 ·
I updated the numbers for September 1st in the original post at the top of the thread. Only 5 months to go and they are still over 600,000 votes short. It seems there's a new shooting in the news every week or two, which you would think would help them. Maybe they are sitting on petitions. Who knows. But they have to submit them within 30 days of signing, so they can't sandbag too much.
 
#39 · (Edited)
I have updated the OP for October. To save you some scrolling here's the new update:

As of 2019-10-01:
Gathered 111,167 (up 6,176) of 766,200 required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 655,033 still needed)
Distribution threshold met in 0 of 14 districts required for ballot placement (requirement not met, 14 still needed)

Days remaining to signature deadline (2/1/2020): 123

Synopsis: In one month BAWN has only gathered 6,176 new signatures, scarcely better than last month's total of 5,399. As was true last month, none of the districts are anywhere near meeting the signature requirements for "distribution threshold". With only 4 months remaining it would take a sudden, massive burst of progress for them to have any chance at all of making the ballot. Additionally the Florida Supreme Court still has not ruled on whether the amendment language is impermissibly misleading. I'm going to go ahead and call this and say there's no way in hell they are going to make the ballot, but I guess anything is possible.
 
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