On public safety, Florida Republicans get an F

The day a gunman killed 17 people at a Parkland high school, the Republican-led Florida Senate was scheduled to vote on a bill to make it easier to bring guns to churches that share campuses with schools.

The day after the shooting, the state Senate was scheduled to vote on a proposal by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam to let people get concealed weapons permits before their background checks were completed. Given the optics, Putnam, a Republican candidate for governor who calls himself a “proud NRA sellout,” asked that the vote be delayed out of respect for the families of the dead.

And this week, before it was pulled Saturday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hear a bill that would let teachers with concealed weapons permits bring their guns to school. Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie says teachers don’t want more guns in schools. “A shootout is not the answer.”

Not on the agenda in the Florida Legislature’s final three weeks is a Democratic senator’s bill (SB 196) to ban the sale of military-style weapons like the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle Nikolas Cruz used to massacre 17 people — and injure 15 — at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday.

Not on the agenda is another Democrat’s bill (SB 1476) to lift the ban on creating a gun registry, which could help prevent and solve crimes by allowing authorities to trace a gun’s ownership.

And not on the agenda is another Democrat’s bill (SB 218) to require loaded guns be stored with trigger locks when children are around. Get the picture? Florida Republicans control the Governor’s Mansion, the Cabinet and both chambers of the Legislature — and they refuse to do anything to address gun violence. Instead, swayed by the money and machine of the gun lobby, they keep chip, chip, chipping away at the laws we have now.

After each mass shooting in Florida, Republican leaders say the killing has to stop. But they’ve done nothing to stop it. Nothing.

If you believe government exists to keep people safe, Florida Republicans deserve an F.

No one’s talking about improving public safety by taking away everybody’s guns. That’s a red herring raised to inflame the far-right. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms, and most gun owners are responsible and reasonable people. But where’s the line? Just because the First Amendment guarantees your right to free speech doesn’t mean you can yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. And the U.S. Supreme Court says it’s reasonable to have restrictions on your right to bear arms.

“Do you have a right to own a nuclear weapon? No? A Patriot Missile?” asks Pembroke Pines Vice Mayor Angelo Castillo, the director of strategic planning and research at the Broward Sheriff ’s Office. “As a society, we have a right to make those decisions. If we have a pattern, and dare I suggest we have one, mentally ill people are killing people where they congregate … how long are we going to tolerate your rights trumping mine?”

There’s no silver bullet for stopping people with miserable lives from killing people in places where they congregate. But do we have to sell them weapons of war to mow us down so fast? AR-15s aren’t designed for hunting or self defense. They’re designed to quickly kill a lot of people.

Two months after a gunman with an AR-15 mowed down 26 children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a West Palm Beach high school student asked Gov. Scott if he would support an assault weapons ban. The governor said he would “continue to defend the Second Amendment” while working with law enforcement to improve school safety. We see how well that worked.

And after the slaughter at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, where a gunman used an AR-15 to kill 49 people, Gov. Scott said “the Second Amendment didn’t kill anybody. Radical Islam. ISIS. They’re the ones doing this.”

Now, as the governor finishes up his eighth and final year, he says he’s getting to work on keeping people with mental illness from getting guns. Great. Let’s measure his success in November, when he’s expected to run for the U.S. Senate.

He also wants to have a conversation about keeping kids safe in school. Great. Let him talk to the students at Marjory Stoneman, who had to hide in closets and under desks while an 19-year-old with an AR-15 stalked them.

Rather than face the problem head-on, the governor and legislative leaders seek to pivot our attention to mental health and securing schools. While better funding of school mental health services is long overdue, banning assault weapons would be a faster way to lessen the carnage.

However, Senate President Joe Negron said Thursday that his chamber won’t consider any proposals to limit access to rapid-fire weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, reports FloridaPolitics.com.

“What I am focusing on is making sure that people who have mental instabilities or mental health issues don’t have access to firearms,” Negron said.

But not everyone who suffers from mental illness is violent. And just because you suffer from depression doesn’t mean you should lose your right to own a gun. This is a sticky wicket. Banning assault weapons would be a faster way to lessen the carnage.

As for hardening schools, people will find ways to get over a fence or through a gate when school lets out, as Cruz did. How many armed officers must we place on school campuses? How many metal detectors? And how about places where children congregate after school? It’s unrealistic to suggest hardening schools will stop the madness. Banning assault weapons would be a faster way to lessen the carnage.

The only way to fix this problem is for fed-up citizens to become single-issue voters and change the leadership in Tallahassee.

To best honor those who’ve died, let us remember them in November.

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 Howard Saltz.