TALHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Florida students traumatized by the 2018 Parkland School shooting – and last week’s fatal shooting at Florida State University is urging Republican-controlled state capitol to not rewind the restrictions on guns he passed after Marjorie Stoneman’s murder at Douglas High School.
Since its passing, gun rights activists have fought to unravel the 2018 law. This includes the provisions to increase the state minimum age and purchase at 21 years old.
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After the FSU shooting, student activists are urging lawmakers to support gun control policies in the final two weeks of the legislative meeting, which ends May 2.
“We’ve been working hard to get into the world,” said Stephanie Horowitz, a freshman at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 and a current graduate student at FSU.
Two people died in the shooting last Thursday, while six others terrified the FSU campus, terrifying about a mile (1.6 km) from the state capitol. As of Wednesday, the 20-year-old student, who investigators identified the suspect as still hospitalized, is in good condition, officials said. It is not expected that a claim will be filed against Phoenix Echner until he is released.
Logan Rubenstein was in eighth grade at nearby Coral Springs Middle School when a 19-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 17 people and injured 17 at Marjorie Stone Man Douglas High School. Currently, the 21-year-old is a junior at FSU.
“It wasn’t as fatal as it wasn’t,” Rubenstein said of the FSU shooting. “And for me, that’s because of the laws we passed after Parkland.”
In the aftermath of the Parkland massacre, victims and relatives descended on the Capitol with extraordinary advocacy feats.
This includes establishing a Red Flag Act that allows courts to take guns from people who pose danger to themselves and others, and increasing the age of states having guns.
Investigators say the FSU suspect was armed with a handgun, the former service weapon of his stepmother, a local sheriff’s deputy.
Under current Florida law, Echner could not legally purchase rifles from federally licensed dealers.
Rubenstein said his message to lawmakers was to find “political courage” to protect the state’s gun restrictions.
“It’s important to do the right thing when it comes to life and death,” he said.
About three weeks before FSU’s shooting, the Florida home passed a bill to buy guns at 18 to lower the state’s minimum age. The proposal had already stagnated in the state Senate before the shooting, and it seems unlikely to make any further progress now.
Republican Sen. Corey Simon, a former FSU football player who represents Tallahassee, was shed tears Wednesday when he spoke on the Senate floor about “meaningless violence.”
“Today, I am seeking a moment of silence in the Seminoles, and I can mourn the lost people and many lives that have changed forever,” Simon said.
On Wednesday, the family of one of the victims announced his funeral would be held on Friday in Greenville, South Carolina. According to the family’s lawyer, the father of two, 45-year-old Til Chava, was on the FSU campus as an employee of foodservice vendor Aramark.
Sen. Tina Polsky, a district that includes Parkland, is one of the Democrats who sponsored a gun control bill that Republicans have never been heard in Capitol, where they hold the vast majority in both rooms.
“I’m asking them to do what we did after the horrifying Parkland shooting,” Polsky said at a rally with student activists on Wednesday at the step of Florida’s historic old Capitol. “I don’t know if that will happen, but we’ll continue to fight.”
Democrat state Rep. Anna Escamani told them not to give up before students returned to the Capitol hall to lobby lawmakers and their aides.
“They have the power to abandon rules and agendas of any bill they want,” Eskamani said of the Republican leader. “We’re not trying to create this politics, we’re trying to save lives.”
