Tallahassee, Florida (AP) – Republican legislators in Florida have submitted two legislative proposals that reverse the arms control measures that were adopted in the aftermath of the shooting in 2018 at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Even with a conservative super majority in the legislative power, the measures are expected to encounter some resistance in the Senate, where the new president of the Chamber has opposed certain proposals for arms rights.
After a shooter killed seventeen people in 2018 and wounded seventeen others in high school in Broward County in the suburbs, the survivors of the massacre in Parkland and family members descended from the victims to the capital of the state in an extraordinary performance of interests, where action was demanded of the legislative power led by the Republicans that had previously avoided arms control measures, but had nevertheless accepted comprehensive legislation Only a few weeks after the shooting.
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This included, among other things, the introduction of a Red Flag Act, which enables courts to take weapons from people who pose a danger to themselves or others, and a measure that increases the age for buying a gun from 18 to 21 years. Since then, advocates of armor rights have committed themselves to undo these provisions.
“I look forward to the fact that our state will again earn the title Gunshine State, where citizens are no longer asked to trade in freedoms given by God for the empty promise of a politician,” said the Republican state representative Joel Rudman in a statement In which he sponsors a bill that makes it possible to openly wearing firearms and withdraws the Red Flag Act.
The Republican Senator Randy Fine has submitted a measure that would reverse the law that forbids people under the age of 21 to buy guns.
Both Rudman and Fine participate in the overcrowded primaries for seats in the American House of Representatives, after the newly chosen President Donald Trump had nominated two congress members from Florida to serve in his new government.
While the Florida House has submitted legislation on arms rights in the years since Parkland has submitted legislation, leaders in the Senate have blocked certain measures. Last month, the recently sworn senate speaker Ben Albritton told reporters that he is not in favor of Open Carry and is skeptical about reversing other measures taken in the aftermath of the shooting in 2018.
“I have supported the law enforcement all my life (…) and I am standing next to them in the opposition today,” Albritton said about Open Carry.
___ Kate Payne is a member of the Corps of The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a National Service Program for Wongonmerk that puts journalists in local editorial rooms to report on hidden issues.
