South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Will Biden, Dems act on guns?
Activists optimistic three years after Parkland massacre
Three years after the Parkland school shooting, gun control activists are optimistic that thoughts and prayers finally will be traded for concrete action.
Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. Pulse. Las Vegas. Parkland. Those words have become shorthand for the darkest days in America’s gun violence epidemic.
But after the initial outrage faded, Congress moved on without passing reforms desired by gun control activists. Calls for universal background checks and a ban
on military-style weapons went unheeded. Today, the pandemic is the dominant issue facing politicians and motivating voters. Meanwhile, gun violence spiked in 2020, and firearm sales are hitting record numbers.
Advocates are hoping recently elected President Joe Biden and the Democratic Congress will act. Gail Schwartz, chairwoman of Ban Assault Weapons Now, said weapons designed for war need to be banned for civilian use as they are in other countries.
“We didn’t do it after the Pulse nightclub shooting, when 49 of our fellow Floridians were slaughtered,” said Schwartz, whose 14-year-old nephew Alex Schachter was killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “We didn’t do it after Parkland, when our kids and our educators,
17, were slaughtered. But we must do it now.”
Gun control advocates have newfound sources of hope. Biden’s gun violence plan includes banning
AR-15-style guns and high-capacity magazines. The National Rifle Association is bankrupt.
Jen Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, has not revealed what specific policy proposals could be submitted to Congress for action. White House officials are meeting with groups to develop a plan, she said.
“It is something the president has a personal commitment to,” she told reporters Thursday in Washington.
Susan Rice, the White House’s domestic policy adviser, met Wednesday with gun control groups, including Moms Demand
Action and Everytown for Gun Safety. Rice and other White House staffers spoke with Parkland families on Thursday, Guttenberg said.
As a candidate, Biden’s plan called for requiring background checks for all gun sales, encouraging state gun-licensing programs, ending online gun and ammunition sales, and holding gun manufacturers civilly liable for their products.
The political path for reforms isn’t wide-open, though. The Democratic Congress has a long list of pandemic-related items to tackle, and a gun debate is a highly charged topic that some moderate Democrats may not want to touch. It would expend political capital that Biden may want to devote to other matters. Senate rules mean 60 votes will be needed to send gun legislation to Biden’s desk. Democrats control 50 seats
in the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tiebreaking vote.
A new brand of Second Amendment-supporting lawmakers who have racked up massive social media followings have vowed to fight any push to limit access to guns. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado blasted out a video where she promised to carry her Glock in DC and Congress.
At the state level, gun bills haven’t gained traction in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. A proposal to require universal background checks floundered last year after a backlash from the NRA and Second Amendment supporters. A proposed constitutional amendment that would have let voters decide whether to ban military-style guns met resistance from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. The state Supreme
Court blocked it from appearing on the 2020 ballot because it would be confusing to voters.
Despite these setbacks, Fred Guttenberg, a Parkland gun-control advocate, said the dynamics are shifting in Washington and across the country.
“The only way this gets lost is if gun violence stops, and it is not going to stop,” said Guttenberg, whose 14-yearold daughter, Jaime, was killed at Stoneman Douglas High School. “If anything, because of the pandemic, it is going to get worse. Sadly I am not worried about it getting lost, because the issue isn’t going away.”
Most recently, a gunman in Sunrise killed two FBI agents and wounded three others with a semi-automatic rifle. Gun violence spiked in
2020 with 19,345 deaths, up 25% from the previous year, according to the Gun
Violence Archive.
Gun sales soared in 2020 as the pandemic stoked fears. The FBI conducted more than 4.3 million gun background checks in January of this year, the highest singlemonth total since it started recording the figures in 1998. That surge in gun sales came as political violence gripped Washington with the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Banning guns would be a tough sale in today’s political climate. More likely, Congress will embrace steps such as expanding background checks to cover nearly all gun sales, including those on the internet and at gun shows. That legislation already has passed the U.S. House. Expanding red-flag laws that make it easier for law enforcement to seize guns from dangerous people has also garnered bipartisan support.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, whose districts includes Parkland, said he’s confident Congress will get something done, particularly when it comes to expanding background checks.
“This is something that has broad support outside of Washington,” he said. “We now have a House of Representatives, a Senate and a White House that stands with the overwhelming majority of Americans.”
Parkland did produce some change at the state level.
The Florida Legislature acted on bipartisan legislation in 2018, just months before state lawmakers faced voters. The compromise package included raising the age to buy a rifle from 18 to 21, requiring background checks statewide for longgun sales, and establishing a red-flag law.
Liberal lawmakers failed to get a ban on the sale of
AR-15-style guns included in the Parkland legislation.
State Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, and state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, are continuing the push to those weapons to be banned in Florida, although their legislation faces a steep uphill climb.
Manuel Oliver, whose
17-year-old son, Joaquin, was killed in Parkland, said he doesn’t like using the term “anniversary” to mark the passage of time since Feb.
14, 2018, because it carries a tone of celebration.
He said he’s waiting for more to be done.
“It is three years of the worst day of our life,” Oliver said.