GOP senator: Better background checks for guns could be needed
TALLAHASSEE — After three hours of testimony from experts on Monday, the Republican head of a Florida Senate panel looking into mass violence and white nationalism suggested that increased background checks on gun sales might be needed.
“Probably the thing that makes the most sense, if there is something to be done in the area of common-sense gun safety, would probably be an enhancement of some kind of background check system, to look and see where there are holes in that system and if there is room for improvement,” said Senate Infrastructure and Security Chairman Tom Lee, R-Thonotosassa.
Democrats in Washington and Florida have been pushing universal background checks, to close what they call “loopholes” in state and federal laws that allow private gun sales without checks.
Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, RBradenton, directed Lee to have his committee review acts of mass violence following mass shootings last month in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. Federal authorities are investigating the El Paso massacre, in which 22 people were killed and two dozen other individuals were injured, as an act of domestic terrorism and a possible hate crime after the gunman allegedly targeted Hispanics before opening fire Aug. 3 at a Walmart.
Galvano also asked Lee, a former Senate president, to explore whether the Legislature needs to take additional action after passing school-safety laws in the wake of the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
In addition to requiring improved school security, the 2018 law also raised the minimum age from 18 to 21 and imposed a three-day waiting period for the purchase of rifles and other long guns.
Lee’s committee, which held its first meeting Monday in advance of the 2020 legislative session that begins in January, heard from a pair of Florida State University criminology professors who are conducting federally funded research on mass shootings. The Senate panel also received updates from professional crime fighters, including Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen.
While gun-rights advocates, including President Donald Trump, have blamed mass shootings on inadequate mental health services, Swearingen eschewed the link between mental health issues and gun violence. While some assailants have a history of mental health problems, “it is rarely the key” to violent acts, he said.
“They don’t snap. They decide,” he said. “Most plan their attacks, days, months, even years in advance.”
Most shooters purchase or possess the weapons they use in committing acts of mass violence legally, or take the weapons from home, Swearingen told the panel, adding that there is a “huge gap” in the reasons perpetrators commit mass killings.
Democrats on the committee repeatedly tried, to little avail, to force the panelists to respond to questions about restrictions on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, or other gun-control proposals.
For example, Sen. Annette Taddeo, D-Miami, pointed out that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission bans the use of high-capacity magazines for shooting some game animals.
“If we can cap magazine capacity to protect wildlife, why can’t we cap it to protect human life?” she asked.
When none of eight expert panelists responded, Taddeo said she would try another question, before Lee interjected: “Well, we’ve got crickets.”