In the wake of Parkland, I get that lawmakers were concerned. It rattled a lot of people in the state, and there was a lot of pressure to "do something."
I hate those two words because it leads to so many issues. In this case, they trampled on the rights of adults under 21. However, it seems that lawmakers there know their predecessors screwed up and they seem to be trying to fix it.
In fact, a bill addressing just that hit the House floor on Thursday.
Legislation that lowers the age to buy firearms, reversing restrictions implemented after the Parkland shooting, is moving to the House floor.
The House Judiciary Committee on a 16-6 vote advanced a bill (HB 759) that would allow 18-year-olds to purchase or take legal ownership of firearms, including the type used in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. That marked the last committee stop this year for the legislation before the full House membership can take it up for consideration.
Several family members of individuals killed in that tragedy spoke out during the committee hearing, urging lawmakers not to roll back gun access restrictions put in place in response.
Broward County School Board Chair Debbie Hixon, whose husband, Chris Hixon, was Campus Security Monitor at the Parkland high school and one of three adults murdered there, said lowering the age to purchase guns would betray families who demanded a policy response at the time.
“To me, this feels like salt being poured into an open wound. Families, very early into grief and shock of what happened, came up here to Tallahassee and asked you to do something, and you did it,” Debbie Hixon said.
“You did it as a bipartisan body that believed in the things that were in this bill. And you know what? It made our communities safer. And now you want to repeal things. To me, that makes me feel like you have forgotten who my husband and the other 16 victims were.”
Of course, no one has forgotten who the victims were.
But they also remembered that there is a buttload of adults under 21 who did nothing wrong and who have been completely disarmed by the measures passed in the wake of that awful day.
A lot of us also remember that the killer on that terrible day turned out to be someone who'd had a few dozen contacts with law enforcement, including cases that would be considered domestic violence and did nothing. Just one such conviction would have barred him from buying a gun at all, and no additional gun control would have been needed to stop that terrible tragedy.
Rather than trying to reform domestic violence laws so that such people face arrests or something like that, though, we get anti-gun hysterics.
Throughout the state of Florida, adults under 21 who had concerns about their personal protection were left defenseless unless someone acted on their behalf. A parent could buy them a gun, of course, as could friends or such, but that means their rights depend on someone else. Then there is the concern some of those other parties might have as to whether they could be arrested for a straw purchase, which I totally get even if those fears are misplaced in most cases.
The law that was passed was an overreaction. The families of some of the victims that day are missing that the world is bigger than that.
Plus, frankly, they don't speak for all the victims. Our own Ryan Petty lost his daughter that day. He doesn't support this law, He's not alone in that, either.
So I'm glad this is on the House floor. I hope it gets a vote, makes it through the Senate, and lands on Gov. Ron DeSantis's desk. I know he'll sign it, and this travesty will be over.
Finally.
