Credit: Florida Politics.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/662705-bobby-payne-blames-violence-on-immigrants-black-on-black-crime-as-house-votes-to-lower-gun-buying-age/
The bill, which rolls back parts of the Parkland public safety reforms, appears dead in the Senate.
The House has voted to lower Florida’s gun-buying age on assault rifles to 18. But the bill (HB 1223) has no shot in the Senate.
Six years after Florida enacted the first gun control laws in decades following a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, many of the lawmakers who supported the 2018 bill voted to roll one provision back.
The bill’s sponsor, who voted for the 2018 school safety bill, said Americans need to defend themselves from a young age from criminal elements.
“What I’m worried about is my kids, my grandkids and your kids. They can’t defend themselves because we’re restricting their rights,” said Rep. Bobby Payne, a Palatka Republican. “Those constitutional rights that my father fought for, the veterans in this chamber fought for, those are being wiped out by a tyrannical approach by a failing federal administration.”
Payne, who voted for the 2018 bill, blamed continued gun violence on federal policies. He also blamed undocumented immigrants crossing the border and committing violent crimes.
“Now some Democrats want to take our guns,” Payne said. “They complain about gun violence, which is Black-on-Black crime, and use of stolen guns. Criminals attack innocent people every day.”
That prompted presiding officers to urge Payne quickly wrap his closing argument. The House then voted 76-35 in favor of the bill.
But Senate President Kathleen Passidomo has made clear the upper chamber has no plans to take the measure up.
Democrats, including several who held office in Parkland in 2018, said the bill aimed to reverse a vitally important public safety matter.
Rep. Dan Daley, a Coral Springs Democrat, noted that 15 House members remain in the chamber who served at the time of the shooting. Every one of them, including 13 Republicans, voted for a bill that raised the age to buy a long gun from 18 to 21. The Parkland shooter was 19 at the time of the Parkland shooting.
“You did the right thing. So many of you did the right thing,” Daley said. He noted a current U.S. Senator, former Gov. Rick Scott, signed the bill. Agriculture Commissioner and former Sen. Wilton Simpson and Lt. Gov. and former Rep. Jeanette Núñez did as well.
Rep. Randy Fine, a Palm Bay Republican, said he stands by his vote for the Parkland bill in 2018, even though many GOP Primary voters continue to say they can never vote for him because of it. But he said the change in gun-buying age was always a compromise, and the Legislature has come back nearly every year since adjusting the law.
“We come back here every year, and we change the security bill, in part because many of those promises that were made were not kept,” Fine said.
Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, a Parkland Democrat who was Mayor of the city at the time of the shooting, said a vote to rescind the law was a betrayal of the bill.
“You know where I was that day. I was at home, diagonally across from the school,” she recounted.
“I was there before the police lines were set up, as parents were coming showing me the texts of their kids in closets, afraid they weren’t going to make it. We had a police officer on campus who was too scared to confront the guy with the long gun — and the police officer was armed and trained. Similar to what happened in Uvalde, he didn’t go in because they were afraid of the gun. I was at the Marriott that night hearing the screams of parents getting the worst news of their lives.”