NRA may be losing influence in state
Defying gun lobbyist, panel backs expanded background checks
TALLAHASSEE — Marion Hammer, the powerful NRA lobbyist, wasn’t happy to be standing in front of a group of state senators who were considering expanding background checks for gun sales.
“This bill is nothing less than gun control on steroids,” she proclaimed.
Then she issued a warning to anyone thinking of supporting it. “A vote for this bill is a vote for massive gun control,” she said.
The Senate panel led by Sen. Tom Lee, a longtime Republican lawmaker from the Tampa area, defied Hammer and moved the bill forward with a favorable recommendation.
Hammer has long sparked fear in Florida’s Republicancontrolled Legislature, but senators are no longer adhering to her every demand. A horrifying streak of violence in Florida and increased advocacy efforts are swaying some GOP legislators to break with the NRA.
The subtle shift was on display as the Florida Legislature kicked off its 60-day session this week.
“We have children killing children,” Lee said. “The Legislature has to act. We have to do something to continue to try to move the ball forward on some com
“We have children killing children. The Legislature has to act.” State Sen. Tom Lee, R-Thonotosassa
mon-sense gun safety in this state.”
Mass shootings have affected every part of the state. Gunmen have opened fire in an Orlando nightclub, a Parkland school, a Tallahassee yoga studio, a Pensacola naval air station, a Sebring bank and a Jacksonville video game tournament.
That doesn’t mean all of Florida’s Republican leaders are on board with the background check bill, a measure that gun control advocates consider to be modest and incomplete. Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker José Oliva have expressed concerns.
Yet, signs indicate the NRA’s grip on Florida lawmakers could be loosening. After the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the Legislature passed Florida’s first gun control laws in two decades over the NRA’s objections, raising the age to buy a rifle from 18 to 21 and imposing a statewide waiting period to buy a long gun. (A three-day waiting period was already in place statewide for handgun purchases).
Red-clad members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group favoring new restrictions on guns, fill meeting rooms when gun bills are heard.
Gun control groups also are putting money into the process. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group largely financed by Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, contributed $500,000 to Senate President Bill Galvano’s political committee after the Parkland shooting.
Beth DuMond, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action, said she doesn’t know whether the NRA’s influence is waning, but Floridians who favor gun control are making their voices heard.
“For decades, the only voice being heard in the Capitol were the NRA and their lobbyists,” DuMond said. “Now, there is another group being heard, and they are saying, ‘We aren’t lobbyists. We are your constituents, and we are not going anywhere.’ ”
The group will hold its fourth advocacy day at the Capitol on Thursday.
For years, the NRA has moved the Legislature in the opposite direction of tighter restrictions on guns, giving Florida its “Gunshine State” nickname. Hammer, 80, has lobbied against gun restrictions for more than four decades.
Under her watch, state legislators passed the “stand your ground law,” which eliminated a duty for Floridians to retreat from a dangerous situation and allowed them to use deadly force. The Legislature stopped local governments from doing anything about guns — threatening local elected officials with fines and removal from office if they tried to implement local gun control measures.
The Legislature’s progun attitude is still strong. Last year, lawmakers voted to allow teachers to be armed on campus if they undergo training and local school boards agree. Bills that would ban the sale of AR-15-style rifles and highcapacity magazines don’t get hearings.
Some items on the progun wish list haven’t gone anywhere. The Legislature hasn’t taken up bills to allow guns on college campuses or legislation that would allow firearms to be openly carried.
The NRA isn’t a big political spender in the Florida Legislature. Instead, it wields its influence through its extensive mailing list of gun-rights supporters, some of whom are single-issue voters who can doom a candidate’s chances in a conservative district.
“In all my career, I have never seen a dollar bill walk into a voting booth and vote, but people do,” Hammer told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in 2018. “The NRA has people and we vote.”
Gun-control advocates say the background check proposal would be a modest, although incomplete, first step. The bill would close the so-called “gun show loophole” by requiring background checks to be conducted for firearm sales in public places. Ten counties, including Broward, Palm Beach and MiamiDade counties, already have local rules on the books that require background checks.
People who sell a firearm privately wouldn’t have to run a background check, but they would have to keep a notarized record of the sale, including a signed affidavit that the purchaser meets the requirements to own a gun. Failure to make the record would be a misdemeanor offense.
The bill has other provisions. It would require that loaded guns be stored securely in homes with children younger than 18. Health care practitioners also would be required to disclose specific threats of violence to law enforcement.
Hammer called the bill “an attempt to ban private sales through red tape and fear.” DeSantis questioned whether the gun show loophole even existed, saying it is a “talking point.”
“The fact of the matter is anyone selling firearms is going to have to do it unless it is just like a private sell,” DeSantis said. “You aren’t going to have a table at a gun show just to do one private sale.”
Oliva expressed concerns that the Legislature could “infringe on those things people consider their constitutional rights.”
Galvano said he isn’t backing down in his support for the background check bill. In the wake of mass shootings in Texas in August, he promised the Senate would take a hard look at measures that could save lives.
“It is important we look at these issues in their totality,” said Galvano, a Republican from Bradenton. “That’s what we set out to do. That’s what I told the people of Florida we would do.”