Suit against Stoneman Douglas Act faces long odds

It speaks well of Florida’s new gun law that the National Rifle Association hates it.

That’s faint praise, to be sure. But despite several strong features, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Act falls far short of what Florida still needs to do. The Constitution Revision Commission could do it, and should, when it begins its final deliberations next week.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines should be banned, as they are in seven states and the District of Columbia. That some people like to use these weapons of war for target practice shouldn’t trump their potential for enormous misuse. If the six-minute massacre of 14 students and three teachers and staff wasn’t reason enough for change, what ever would be?

The new law, which Gov. Rick Scott signed Friday, also errs dangerously in authorizing cadres of armed faculty, cafeteria workers and janitors. County sheriffs and school boards would be prudent to refuse such an army, as the law allows. A teacher’s handgun is no match for an AR-15, though that’s not the only problem with this approach.

Still, the gun lobby made some points usefully clear by filing suit against the new law’s ban on all firearms sales to people under 21.

• The NRA’s hysteria over raising the minimum age a mere three years lays bare an uncompromising fanaticism in which nothing matters more than guns. (Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, a leading Republican candidate for governor, objects to raising the age, too.) Yet federal law already forbids people under 21 from buying handguns and the courts have upheld it. Requiring people to be 21 to buy rifles and shotguns is reasonable, too.

• It highlights the Legislature’s newfound courage, however limited it may be, in defying the state’s most belligerent lobby. It’s hard to recall the NRA being denied anything other than open carry and guns on college campuses. It’s the first time in decades that the Legislature actually enacted anything over the NRA’s objections. Let it not be the last.

• It points up the contrast to the moral weakness of a president whose promises on the subject lasted no longer than a visit from the NRA. In a meeting, he chided the fears of people who didn’t want to raise the age. It turns out that he’s the one afraid of the NRA.

An interesting twist to the litigation, filed in the federal district court for North Florida, is that the gun lobby isn’t relying just on the Second Amendment. It also cites the Fourteenth, alleging a denial of equal protection of the laws to legal adults between 18 and 21. But where was the NRA when Congress was forcing states to deny such young people the right to drink?

The odds are long against the success of the NRA’s arguments. The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a state’s assault weapons ban as well as the federal law that prevents people under 21 from buying handguns. Last November, the court also let stand a Florida law that prohibits concealed-weapons permit-holders from wearing their firearms in an open, visible way.

In the controversial 2008 Supreme Court opinion establishing a basic right to own a weapon, Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion made clear that the Second Amendment doesn’t grant people “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” That leaves the path clear for Florida to improve on the new law.

Yes, it has other positive features: more money for school security, expanding the three-day waiting period to rifles and shotguns, and empowering the police to temporarily take weapons from someone who “poses a potential danger to himself or others.”

Despite all that, the bill leaves a false impression of security.

The minimum age and three-day waiting period apply only to purchases from licensed dealers and manufacturers. The gun show loophole — which lets people buy guns from private collectors without any background check — still yawns wide. And although someone under 21 would be risking a felony charge to buy at a gun show, over the internet or from a neighbor, how is that to be enforced if it’s not also a crime on the private seller’s part? In any case, most mass shootings have been committed by people older than 21.

So, it was a rash boast — “Never Again” — that appeared on the Florida House of Representatives home page at the end of the session.

The Florida Senate, meanwhile, rewrote the bill during floor debate to remove a provision that earmarked millions of dollars to hospitals to treat the victims of mass shootings. Leaders said the money was folded into Medicaid money for hospitals, minus the language that tacitly admits there could be more mass shootings.

According to a Washington Post summary, the Valentine’s Day tragedy at Stoneman Douglas was Florida’s eighth mass shooting since 1987, with 100 victims in all. The worst was the Pulse nightclub massacre at Orlando in 2016, with 49 dead. Others have died at restaurants, offices, a shopping center, a machine shop and a hotel. Stoneman Douglas was the only school and, apparently, the only one committed by someone under 21.

At a hearing in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, citizens — including families from Stoneman Douglas — pleaded with the Constitution Revision Commission to give Florida voters the chance to be heard on a constitutional amendment that would ban assault weapons. The opposition contends that banning assault weapons would inconvenience law-abiding citizens without deterring criminals. But if there were logic in that argument, it would follow that all anti-crime laws are ineffective. Imagine society without them.

The people of Florida need stronger action against weapons of mass destruction. If not now, when? If not now, why not?

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.