Note to Media: Reddit is Not Real Life

As we’ve long seen, Floridians aren’t anti-gun. In fact, they removed a number of lawmakers who voted for the post-Parkland gun control measures, and they continue to push for a restoration of their gun rights. In fact, they’ve made some pretty good strides. Unfortunately, those post-Parkland measures are still in place.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pretty pro-gun, it’s been Attorney General James Uthmeier who has made a lot of the recent pro-gun moves.

His latest has been to say that the state’s three-day waiting period is unconstitutional and is settling a lawsuit that challenged that waiting period.

It’s good news, because if you realize your life is in danger, three days might take the rest of your life.

It seems that some, though, looking for pushback, have decided that the way to gauge the thinking of Floridians is to go to Reddit and look at what people say.

Floridians on Reddit’s r/Florida had harsh words for Uthmeier, but many focused on the fact that he claimed that it was a “God-given right” to own firearms. One user said, “It bothers me when a government official says anything written in the Constitution is granted by ‘God’. God most def did not sign that.”

One local complained: “Pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain, or the fact that ‘God’ is not in the U.S. Constitution.” Another responded: “Or that the US isn’t mentioned in their bible. Or that the authors of the Constitution have quotes stating neutrality, neither favoring nor disfavoring any particular religion.”

Some Floridians seemed very concerned about the safety of residents, too, especially in the case of women: “Speaking as a woman, if I’m able to go buy a gun (3-day wait or not) to defend against a psychopathic BF, then I’m out of danger. (…) This gun rights nonsense is not making the world safer. It’s increasing the probability that the psychopathic BF shows up with a gun.”

First, let’s understand that Reddit has a long history of favoring the left in a lot of venues. While the moderators are volunteers and they can vary from subreddit to subreddit, in most places on the site, the left gets more favorable moderation, which has run many pro-gun voices off the site entirely or, at a minimum, pushed them into subreddits that are explicitly right-leaning or pro-gun.

To report on what people on Reddit are saying as if it somehow represents the state as a whole is…special, to say the least.

Especially when the people themselves are too stupid to understand what “God-given rights” would translate to in their apparently atheist worldview. God-given rights are the rights that we’re born with by virtue of free men and women. You don’t believe in God? That’s on you, but these same rights are called “natural rights,” and that’s because they’re part of the nature of being a human.

Getting hung up on Uthmeier’s injection of God into the discussion doesn’t change that fact. Even a cursory reading of the Founder’s own words would show what they thought of these rights, how they did, in fact, believe they came from God in many cases, and that they fully intended us to have them unmolested by future legislators.

As for the last one, well, I hate to break to her, but if the psychopathic boyfriend wants to kill her with a gun, he’s probably got a way to get one even without the three days. Plus, a psychopathic man will always have a physical advantage over the average woman, enough of one where he wouldn’t need a gun to kill her. A three-day waiting period isn’t going to save her life. A gun, however, just might.

Still, I find it funny that somehow, some random posts on Reddit are indicative of the thinking in Florida, when there’s not really a requirement to be a Floridian to comment on Florida issues on the site. There might be stated rules in the subreddit (there aren’t), there’s no verification possible on the site, so anything there should be taken with a grain of salt.

Plus, this is a Florida subreddit that has a rainbow over the shape of the state. While there are most definitely gay gun owners out there, and I know more than a few, it’s a signal that the moderation team there might not be politically neutral, and thus might shape what one would find there.

Reddit is not real life. Everyone needs to understand that, and most probably do.

If it were, there’s no way Graham Platner wouldn’t have been arrested or something ages ago, before he could run for the Senate and make a mockery out of his entire party.

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