TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Survivors of the Florida school shooting descended on the state’s Capitol on Wednesday and had one overarching message: It’s time for action.
The kids split into several groups to talk with lawmakers and other state leaders about gun control, the legislative process, and mental health issues. Some tearfully asked why civilians should be allowed to have weapons such as the AR-15, which was used in the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School exactly one week ago.
When Florida’s Senate President Joe Negron heard the question, he didn’t directly answer: “That’s an issue that we’re reviewing.” When another lawmaker said he supported raising the age to buy assault-style weapons to 21 from 18, the students broke into applause.
The Florida Senate opened its session by showing pictures of all 17 victims in the attack.
“There are some really harrowing tales here,” said Democratic Sen. Lauren Book of Broward County, who helped organize busloads of students who arrived at the Capitol late Tuesday night. She stayed overnight with the students in Tallahassee’s Civic Center and said they stayed up until 5 a.m., researching, writing and preparing to talk with politicians.
“It has been a very, very difficult, tough night. It’s in those quiet moments that the reality of this stuff, without all the noise sets in. In any given moment, there’s tears. It’s raw and it’s there.”
About 100 students from the high school made the 400-mile (640-kilometer) trip on three buses. They told the 500 students and parents waiting for them that they were fighting to protect all students.
“We’re what’s making the change. We’re going to talk to these politicians. … We’re going to keep pushing until something is done because people are dying and this can’t happen anymore,” said Alfonso Calderon, a 16-year-old junior.
Despite their enthusiasm and determination, the students and their supporters aren’t likely to get what they really want: a ban on AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles. Republican lawmakers are talking more seriously about some restrictions, but not a total ban.
Instead, they’re discussing treating assault-style rifles like the one suspected gunman Nikolas Cruz is accused of using more like handguns than long guns. That could mean raising the minimum age to purchase the weapon to 21, creating a waiting period and making it more difficult for people who exhibit signs of mental illness from buying the weapon even without a diagnosis.
Democrats attempted to get a bill to ban assault rifles and large-capacity magazines heard on the House floor on Tuesday. Republicans, who dominate the chamber, dismissed it. Students who were at the Capitol ahead of their classmates found Republicans steered the conversation away from gun restrictions.
“We’re not going to be the school that got shot, we’re going to be the school that got shot and made something happen. A change is going to happen,” said Rachel Catania, 15, a sophomore at Stoneman Douglas.
As the grieving Florida students demanded action, President Donald Trump on Tuesday directed the Justice Department to move to ban devices like the rapid-fire bump stocks used in last year’s Las Vegas massacre. It was a small sign of movement on the gun violence issue that has long tied Washington in knots.
“We must do more to protect our children,” said Trump, a strong and vocal supporter of gun rights.
The students planned to hold a rally Wednesday to put more pressure on the Legislature.
“I really think they are going to hear us out,” said Chris Grady, a high school senior aboard the bus.
State lawmakers have rebuffed gun restrictions since Republicans took control of both the governor’s office and the Legislature in 1999. And Florida has a reputation for expanding gun rights. In 2011, Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed a law that banned cities and counties from regulating gun and ammunition sales.
Scott organized three committees to look at school safety, mental health and gun safety issues that met Tuesday and vowed to make changes. While Scott told reporters several times that “everything is on the table,” he did not answer whether his proposal would include any bans on any type of weapons.
Instead, Scott said he is interested in making it harder for people who are temporarily committed to obtain a gun. He also pledged to increase spending on school safety programs and on mental health treatment.
Authorities said Nikolas Cruz, 19, had a string of run-ins with school authorities that ended with his expulsion. Police were repeatedly called to his house throughout his childhood. His lawyers said there were many warning signs that he was mentally unstable and potentially violent. Yet he legally purchased a semi-automatic rifle.
Stoneman Douglas senior Diego Pfeiffer was realistic about what change would happen before the Legislature goes home March 9, but said anything is a good first step.
“The best case scenario is we move a step forward and that’s all we’re asking here. We’re asking to help save student lives,” he said. “Whether it’s funding or mental health or gun safety or any of that sort of stuff — I am pro any of that.”
Good for those kids.
Shame on those politicians.
Just some observations, not ranked by obviousness and banality:
The fact that this obvious thing, this thing that leads sane people to say “how is it even conceivable that this isn’t already the law of every state?” is a heavy lift is the problem.
This obvious thing, if it happened in Florida, would represent an existential threat–literally a threat to the continued growth, power, and long term financial viability of the NRA. The NRA will respond accordingly. They’ll wait for a bit, but they’ll be in with their bags of money and their fearmongering ads and their insane, over the top evil commercials and social media. They’ll demonize by patronization and pull guns on legislators in private.
And yet, if it doesn’t happen, Republicans swimming against the tide in November face disaster in a redistricting year in a state they’ve had a stranglehold on for a decade, an occurrance that would also represent an existential threat to the NRA.
Yesterday, I said trying to reach some sort of common ground and consensus to do sensible things was a losing strategy as long as the NRA exists and that there will be no meaningful progress until the NRA has been reduced to the same level of social stigma that attaches to the Klan or MBLA (if there really even is such a thing). I failed to appreciate, however, that if it ever becomes possible to do one of those things and it happens, that in itself is a thing that contributes mightily to the destruction of the NRA as a political force in this country.
So what you’re saying is we need to shrink the NRA to a size where we can drown them in a bathtub. I like the sound of that…
You could probably auction the privilege of drowning Dana Loesch and Wayne LaPierre
Well, since I hate the author of that statement like cancer, I’m sticking with “crushed down to the point that their headquarters is auctioned off by a bankruptcy trustee and the post reorganization entity relocates to a cigarette smoke drenched used mobile home with an old-fashioned rotary dial phone, a dot matrix printer and a mimeograph machine.” On further reflection, though, I think the objective could be stated a bit more precisely by specifying “a used mobile home reeking of decades of cigarette smoke and stale urine.”