TALLAHASSEE

Florida lawmakers are expected to advance legislation this week that would grant immunity to people who show or fire guns in self-defense.

The so-called “warning shot” bill (SB 448) is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee Wednesday.

The legislation would amend Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law to allow Floridians who are being attacked and fear for their lives to legally display guns or fire warning shots.

The measure is also another sign of the Legislature’s tilt in favor of bills expanding gun rights. Lawmakers have already set the tone for the 2014 session when a House committee in November overwhelmingly rejected a move to repeal the stand your ground law — which drew national attention after the shooting death of a Florida teenager in 2012.

The Senate measure is sponsored by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, while the House bill (HB 89) is sponsored by Rep. Neil Combee, R-Polk City. Reps. Ray Pilon, R-Sarasota, Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, and Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, are co-sponsors of the House bill.

Combee filed a similar bill last year that sought to change the state’s “10-20-Life” law that mandates lengthy sentences for criminals who use guns during the commission of the crime. But the measure stalled because of complications of changing the state’s sentencing laws and opposition from state prosecutors.

This year, Combee and Evers have modified the legislation to make it an extension of the controversial stand your ground law.

Combee said he decided to file the bill after reading about Marissa Alexander, a Jacksonville woman who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after firing a gun into a wall during a fight with her husband. Combee and other supporters of the legislation said Alexander’s case is one of a number of instances in which Floridians who have tried to legally defend themselves with a gun have received a lengthy prison sentence.

Marion Hammer, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, told the House Criminal Justice Committee in November that the 10-20-Life law “was never intended to be used against citizens who, in an act of self-defense, threatened the use of force to stop an attacker.”

“Yet that’s how some prosecutors are using it,” Hammer said “Certainly not all. But one is too many.”

The House committee voted 12-1 in favor of the bill.

In urging her members to encourage the Senate committee to back the legislation this week, Hammer cited a recent opinion piece she wrote arguing that the bill does not encourage or promote the use of warning shots, which she said are “unsafe.”

“The threat of force in self-defense should have the same protection as actually shooting someone in self-defense,” Hammer wrote. “The issue is not about warning shots. It’s about protecting people from the abuse of prosecutorial discretion.”

The Florida Public Defender Association has announced its support for the legislation, while the state prosecutors have raised some questions.

Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami, a former assistant state prosecutor in Miami-Dade County, voted against the House bill, saying it was the wrong approach to the problem. McGhee said judges should be given more discretion in sentencing, allowing them to decide whether someone deserves a lengthy sentence.

“This is not the answer,” McGhee said about the bill.