Blame for Parkland shooting? It’s laws allowing military-style weapons.
When the Florida Senate refuses to reinstate suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott
Israel, attention will shift too far from the cause of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
The Senate’s decision on
Israel is certain. One of the 23 Republican senators might defect, but at least 22 will support Gov. Ron DeSantis’ removal of Israel. All the Democrats likely will oppose the governor, but they have only 17 votes. A final vote will be held Wednesday.
It won’t matter that, according to the Republican-appointed special master, the Republican governor overstepped. It won’t matter because DeSantis has the Parkland families on his side.
In their anguish, the families want a public figure to blame. They have settled on Israel.
You can understand why. The bungled response to the February 2018 mass shooting followed the bungled response 13 months earlier to the Fort LauderdaleHollywood
International Airport shooting.
Israel looked bad by calling himself an exceptional leader and appearing to duck responsibility for the department’s failings. He wasn’t straight with the commission investigating the Parkland shooting.
Even the quickest response, however, likely would not have saved a single person inside that building. We know that based on the commission’s findings and reports from other mass shootings.
We know that the 19-year-old shooter had armed himself with a military-style weapon designed to inflict as many casualties in as short a time as possible. We know that the shooter had lots of ammunition and a big head start on the first responders.
Bulletproof doors might have helped. Do we blame the Broward County School District for failing to require them in 1990, when Marjory Stoneman Douglas first opened? Do we blame the district for not armoring all high schools after the 1999
Columbine shooting?
One reason for the slow response was a broken radio system. Do we blame the county commissioners and city officials who couldn’t agree on how to make the system work?
Do we blame FBI Director Christopher Wray? He was in charge when someone far down the organizational chart failed to act on a tip about the shooter.
Sen. Rick Scott wants to focus on the FBI. Last week, he introduced legislation that would require the bureau to report tips about potential school shooters to police departments.
But do we also blame Scott? He was governor when the Florida Department of Children and Families checked out the shooter and determined that no referrals were necessary.
Without that 19-year-old being able to buy that weapon, however, we would not be talking about missed opportunities and bungled responses. Or Scott Israel.
Take the blame trail back farther, to 1994 — when Congress banned military-style weapons. Why did lawmakers and President Bill Clinton allow the ban to expire after 10 years?
And why did the Florida Legislature, until then a subsidiary of the National Rifle Association, wait until after the Parkland shooting to raise the minimum age for firearms purchases from 18 to 21? Why didn’t the Legislature make Florida one of the states that prohibit or restrict access to military-style weapons?
The NRA regularly claims that gun control doesn’t work. So do many members of the Florida Legislature, especially Republicans.
But that post-Parkland legislation, which Rick Scott signed as governor, acknowledged that gun control does work. It would have stopped the Stoneman Douglas shooter. Credible studies confirm that mass shootings dropped during the time the federal ban on military-style weapons was in effect.
At worst, Israel indirectly deserves a small share of blame for the Stoneman Douglas shooting. Unless we focus on the cause, however, there will be more shooters, more anguish and more misplaced blame.