After 49 people were murdered at the Pulse nightclub in 2016, the Republican-led Florida Legislature blocked an effort by Democrats to call a special session to consider basic gun reforms that have wide support across party lines.
New gun laws, however, would have to wait for the regular 2017 lawmaking session.
But one thing we’ve learned about mass murder in the United States is that memories are short, particularly Republican politicians’ memories.
When the 2017 session rolled around, Democrats introduced bills to ban assault-style rifles, close a loophole that allows criminals to buy guns through private sales, and require mental health screenings for people who apply for a concealed weapon permit.
Florida Republicans countered with bills to allow guns at college campuses and airports and letting people carry their firearms in the open rather than concealed.
The gun-safety bills didn’t pass, but neither did the Republicans’ gun-insanity bills, which we suppose amounted to a hollow victory.
That should tell you a thing or two about Florida when — less than a year after what was then the worst shooting massacre in U.S. history — a victory is the Legislature failing to pass a law that would let Floridians walk around in the open, armed to the teeth.
That’s what happens when mass murder is so easily forgotten, and that’s partly why we have a sinking feeling that 2022 may be the year of the gun in Tallahassee.
The ingredients are there: A politically ambitious governor in Ron DeSantis, who needs new red-meat issues to feed the conservative base ahead of his reelection bid next year. A Legislature with House and Senate leaders who have shown no inclination to challenge any part of the governor’s agenda.
And, finally, the benefit of sufficient time having passed since Florida’s Pulse and Parkland massacres for memories of the horror to dim, and for pro-gun political opportunity to reemerge.
We would like to be more optimistic, to think that people with common sense could find common ground.
We understand that a ban on assault-style rifles is a bridge too far for too many lawmakers in Florida. So why not start with something nearly everyone agrees on — universal background checks?
It makes no sense for gun retailers to run a criminal-background check on someone trying to buy a new Glock when a private gun owner can sell his used Glock to anyone — including someone with a violent criminal history — without a background check.
It’s a Hummer-size loophole that can easily be exploited through gun shows, online arms brokers or person-to-person sales. Close the loophole and you make it harder for criminals to purchase guns. Simple.
Another example: Markeith Loyd, convicted of murdering an ex-girlfriend and accused of murdering Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton in 2017, was captured with a handgun equipped with a 100-round drum magazine. There’s one reason a person like Loyd would own a drum magazine for his handgun, and that’s to maximize carnage.
Limit magazine capacity and you limit the ability of someone to commit uninterrupted mass murder.
These ideas are not outliers among the general public.
Poll after poll shows support for stricter gun laws and overwhelming support for universal background checks among Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. Surely we can agree that keeping guns out of the hands of people with violent backgrounds is a good idea, can’t we?
Florida has shown lawmakers can do the right thing about gun safety, and survive politically.
After brushing aside gun-safety laws in 2017, the Legislature’s hand was forced when, in the midst of its 2018 lawmaking session, 17 people were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
The Legislature responded with a bipartisan law extending the three-day waiting period for handgun purchases to rifles and shotguns and raising the minimum age for long-gun purchases to 21. It banned so-called bump stocks, an add-on device that the shooter in Las Vegas used in 2017 so his semi-automatic AR-15 rifles could mimic the near constant fire of a fully automatic rifle.
Importantly, the new law included a provision that allows police, with a judge’s approval, to confiscate firearms from someone who’s shown to a risk of doing harm to themselves or others. It’s been used thousands of times so far, likely saving lives without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of the vast majority of gun-owning Floridians.
No, the bill didn’t go far enough. But in that instance, perfect would have been the enemy of good. For a state that had done so little for gun safety for so long, it was an important moment for the Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the bill over the NRA’s objections.
And not that it should matter, but no one’s political career was ruined as a result. Scott went on to be elected U.S. senator. Wilton Simpson and Chris Sprowls, who voted for the gun safety bill, are now leading the state Senate and House.
Lawmakers can — they must — rediscover that fortitude and moral urgency.
At the very least, it would take the form of Republicans forcefully pushing back if DeSantis starts yakking about how jealous he is of the new Texas law that does away with requiring a permit for someone to carry a weapon, concealed or in the open. When it comes to firearms, it’s quite literally the Wild West in Texas now.
Better still, Florida lawmakers can honor the memory of the Pulse shooting victims by passing sensible, publicly supported gun safety measures like universal background checks that might head off the next massacre.
They should do it for their fellow Floridians, and for the 49 who died.
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