Plate Debate: Political motorists.

• Author: Rimensnyder, Sara
• Position: Citings - Brief Article

"SINCE WHEN HAS protecting, honoring, and celebrating a freedom that we have become a controversial statement?" asks Florida state Rep. Ken Littlefield, a Republican.

He's introduced a bill to add a license plate for gun lovers to the roster of more than 50 specialty tags offered by the Sunshine State. His design, picturing an armed minuteman and the slogan "Protect the Second Amendment," would raise funds for school gun-safety programs. Or as Littlefield puts it, classes that would "instill again in our children the value and the sanctity of human life"--seemingly a tall order for a humble license plate program.

Rhetoric aside, the plate's message is controversial, and anti-gun rights activists have complained it would imply the state had endorsed one side of a political issue. But it wouldn't be the first or most contentious message to grace Florida tags.

Between August 2000 and 2001,25,126 Floridians have shelled out $20 apiece...