STF NA MÍDIA

community in Bangladesh
won a fight for third gender
category when authorities
printed passport application
forms with other as an option.
Hijras in neighbouring India
have been able to list their
gender as E for eunuch on
passports since 2005.
Last week Thai campaigners
successfully petitioned courts
to allow transgender people
to serve in the military after
previously being turned away
of the grounds that they were
suffering from "permanent
psychosis".
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US) • EDITORIALS, OP-ED AND LED • 15/9/2011
Pandering to the Gun Lobby
How low can the Florida
Legislature go in pandering
to the gun lobby?
Citizens might have thought
the answer came earlier this
year when doctors were banned
from inquiring about
guns in the household as a
factor in their patients’ welfare.
A federal judge has
blocked that, finding that a
doctor’s free speech hardly
violates the Second amendment.
Now local officials
must deal with another gun
lobby outrage. They are s-
crambling to meet an Oct. 1
deadline by which they must
scrap all local gun control
laws
In 1987, the Legislature passed
a law that allowed the
state to pre-empt the whole
field of gun and ammunition
controls, but it had very little
effect on real life. “No Guns
Allowed” signs and other
notices were kept up in appropriate
places as communities
continued to enforce gun
ordinances already on their
books.
That is about to change under
a new law, passed in June by
the Republican-controlled
Legislature. Local governments
could face penalties of
$100,000 for not dropping
their gun control laws. Local
officials could face a $5,000
fine and possible removal
from office. And court costs
are explicitly denied for local
officials if they are sued by
gun owners under the new
law.
Cities like St. Petersburg are
rushing to repeal sensible
ordinances against firing
guns in the city limits. Other
communities are busy spiking
bans on carrying guns
into public parks. They must
also repeal their authority to
suspend gun and ammunition
sales during public emergencies.
“We’re not allowed to
have bows and arrows or
slingshots in a park, but we
can have a gun,” a town
council member in Oldsmar
said to The St. Petersburg
Times.
Even the Supreme Court, in
its ruling that misread the
Second amendment as a
personal right to bear arms,
stressed that it was not casting
doubt on a wide range of
gun control laws passed to
protect communities from
gun violence. Florida’s voters
will have to ask themselves:
Did we send legislators
to Tallahassee to protect the
gun lobby or to represent all
Floridians?
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