A conservative pollster reports that more than 70 percent of NRA members support criminal background checks on gun buyers, and banning firearm ownership by anyone on the FBI terrorist watch list. But “the paranoid droolers” who run NRA turn apoplectic at the mere hint of reform. Hiaasen quotes from NRA leader Wayne LaPierre that “The future of your freedom is at stake. Gun-ban politicians and their media allies are on the attack . . . And they will not stop until they BAN hundreds of commonly owned firearms.”

Hiaasen’s book includes scathing criticism of past Governor Jeb Bush and current Governor Rick Scott. The latter’s legal losing streak sets “a pathetic record for unconstitutional bills,” he wrote in July 2012, as “Docs vs. Glocks,” a law intended to muzzle physicians, was struck down by a federal judge. Inasmuch as one out of every 25 children delivered to pediatric trauma centers arrives with a gunshot wound, “Doctors who see children bearing bullet holes on a regular basis can be very powerful advocates” of gun control.