Thread: Florida Legislature rejects weapons ban with massacre survivors en route to Capitol

Florida Legislature rejects weapons ban with massacre survivors en route to Capitol

By Ray Sanchez, Chris Boyette and Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN
Updated 10:23 PM ET, Tue February 20, 2018

Tallahassee, Florida (CNN)The Florida state House on Tuesday rejected a ban on many semiautomatic guns and large capacity magazines as dozens of survivors of last week's school shooting headed to the state Capitol to turn their grief into political action.

Lawmakers voted down a motion to consider the ban during a session that opened with a prayer for the 17 people killed by a former student last Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The vote in the Republican-dominated body was 36-71.

Stoneman Douglas students in the gallery of the Capitol during the vote appeared stunned.

"It was just so heartbreaking to see how many (voters') names were up there, especially after it was my school," Sheryl Acquaroli, a 16-year-old junior from Stoneman Douglas, who was crying, later told "Anderson Cooper 360˚." "It seemed almost heartless how they immediately pushed the button to say no."

Spencer Blum, one of her schoolmates, said he felt like lawmakers weren't representing him and other survivors of the shooting.

"That's unacceptable," he said of the vote, adding later: "It shows that they don't care about us."

Sheryl Acquaroli, a 16-year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is overcome with emotion in the gallery of the House of Representatives after the vote.

Sheryl said the next person who is killed by an AR-15 like the one used at her school will be the fault of the 71 people who voted no Tuesday.

"They had a chance to stop it today," she said. "If there is another mass shooting (in Florida) it's going to be their fault."
House Rep. Kionne McGhee of Miami invoked the Parkland shooting in requesting that HB 219 -- which would ban AR-15 rifles and other guns defined as "assault weapons" and large capacity magazines -- be moved from committee to the House floor for questions, debate and a vote.

"I ask that you keep this bill and the conversation about the solution to combat mass shootings alive," McGhee, Democratic ranking member on the Children, Families & Seniors Subcommittee, told the House before the vote.

"While this is an extraordinary procedural move, the shooting in Parkland demands extraordinary action."

With subcommittees set to consider the bill not scheduled to meet this session, the bill is effectively dead, McGhee said.

The bill's sponsor angrily took to social media.

"17 pp in Parkland were just murdered w/an AR-15, + the FL House just passed @RossSpano's HR 157 declaring PORN as a public heath risk. No, GUN VIOLENCE is a public health crisis + Spano blocked HB 219 banning assault weapons in his committee for 2 yrs," said Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith from Orlando.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, held a roundtable on school safety Tuesday. He said he planned to have a proposal by Friday.

"My goal is to come up with something that is going to move the needle and make parents feel more comfortable that their kid's going to go to a safe school. That's the goal," he said. "These kids have got to go to safe schools."

Under the rallying cry #NeverAgain, dozens of students and staff who survived the Florida school shooting departed earlier Tuesday for the Capitol, where they hope to speak with lawmakers Wednesday about school safety and gun control.

While some students had arrived at the Capitol earlier and were there when the vote took place, many taking buses were eating at an Orlando rest stop when they learned of the legislative defeat.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/20/us/fl...ban/index.html

These are young people. It's a shame adults got their hopes up to make a change that wouldn't have made a difference, it just doubles down on their grief.

Adults, meaning the parents, need to go to the school and plan out a security program that includes proper doors, proper automatic closures, automatic locks that are locked for entry into the facility during class-time, and have multiple armed personnel so there are several people throughout the facility with weapons, trained and able within seconds to reach and take out a shooter or any other violent criminal who gets into the facility, should the security system fail.

I believe the Florida legislature made the right decision and Congress should do likewise. You don't take the rights away from innocent people for the actions of someone else. You punish the person who committed the crime and improve security and defense systems.