In the immediate aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, Florida Democrats and Republicans worked together to pass gun and school safety legislation that included some restrictions on guns.
Six years after the Feb. 14, 2018, killing of 17 people and wounding of 17 others at the Parkland school, partisans are divided — and politics deeply entwined in discussions of the shooting and of gun violence in general.
Florida Democrats excoriated Republicans on Tuesday, the eve of the sixth anniversary.
“Every day we remember the students (and) the staff who lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school, and the families whose lives will be in pain for a lifetime. It’s only been six years and the Republican Party are already siding with the gun lobby to roll back the Parkland era gun safety law,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
“Republicans have made it clear that we cannot trust them to put the safety of our families and communities in their hands,” Fried said.
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Orlando, said “hypocrisy” would be on display by people who proclaim their sorrow on the anniversary of the massacre “but don’t have the guts to do anything about the problem.”
And Debbi Hixon, whose husband Chris was the school’s athletic director and was killed when he entered the building and attempted to disarm the shooter, lamented efforts by some Republicans to weaken provisions of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act, enacted after the shooting.
Fried, Frost, Hixon and state Rep. Dan Daley of northwest Broward discussed the anniversary, guns and Republicans on Tuesday during a video news conference.
State Rep. Chip LaMarca, the only Republican lawmaker from Broward County, said later via text that it “unfortunate (the Democrats) would mark the sixth anniversary of the events that caused so much pain and loss with a political press conference.”
Daley, who graduated from Stoneman Douglas, said there’s been a change in attitudes since the 2018 passage of the school safety law, which had support from Republican legislators and was signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican now Florida’s junior U.S. senator.
Purchase age
Daley said it was a bad sign that Republicans in the state House of Representatives pursued legislation to repeal a provision of the law that increased the age to buy long guns from 18 to 21.
“Facts and data don’t lie like you can anecdotally be opposed to (the age 21 law), but the facts and data, they don’t lie. Most school shootings are carried out by individuals 18 to 21 with a long gun,” he said. “The legislation has worked. It’s been a positive thing.”
Pushing to lower the age is “a slap in the face to my community, to the victims and their families,” Daley said.
He credited the current Republican Senate president for blocking the proposal. Hixon was also relieved.
“At least for this year, that is not going to be something that comes to fruition,” Hixon said. Still, she said, the possibility meant that family members of people killed at the school and others had to return to Tallahassee to fight against the rolling back of the age threshold.
Politico reported that the state Republican Party over the weekend included lowering the age for long guns in its list of top 10 priorities for the current legislative session.
Evan Power, chair of the state Republican Party, rejected the Democrats’ notion that people in the GOP who favor a lowering of the purchase age to 18 are doing the bidding of the gun lobby.
“They are doing their duty to the Constitution and not taking rights from 18-year-olds. If we can draft them and send them to die for their Country they should have all their Constitutional rights,” Power said via text.
Not all Republicans agree. “To be clear, I will not support the undoing of the landmark legislation that passed in 2018 and will continue to safeguard families, students and teachers while protecting individual rights,” LaMarca said by text.
LaMarca said the school safety law contained “sensible changes to help prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again … with significant bipartisan support then, and since that time I have run school safety bills with Democrat members and party never came up. Politicizing the issue today is the wrong way to go,” he said.
Chris Marino, chair of the Broward Republican Party, said that his party focuses on other measures to enhance public safety and school security.
“Florida’s Republican leadership recognizes the critical need to invest resources in mental health funding, trained school safety officers and the overall hardening of schools, to just name a few,” he said via email. “Democrat policies advocate for leniency toward criminals but under our Republican leadership in Florida, that isn’t going to happen. … Let Democrats talk all they want, when it comes to public safety Republicans get the job done and voters know it.”
Memories and action
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think, in some way, of Feb. 14, 2018,” Daley said. “It could be something small. It could be my change on my bill comes to 17. And you’re reminded of the 17 victims and 17 injured.”
Fried began the Democrats’ news conference with a moment of silence.
She said the Stoneman Douglas shooting “changed our state forever. We all remember where we were. We all remember the feelings … and the cries of parents all over the state, terrified of dropping their kids off at schools.”
A few minutes later, Frost offered his criticism of Republicans who offer thoughts and prayers, but no concrete solutions.
He praised the actions of the students who mobilized after the Stoneman Douglas shooting.
He reached out to some at the time, and he was invited to drive to Parkland. He arrived in the middle of the night after driving from Orlando. “At 2 a.m. and it’s just a house full of students organizing what would then be known as March for our Lives, the largest youth-led movement in the history of our country.”
“What I want everyone to keep in the back of their heads, or the front of their heads, is it’s one thing to remember. Thoughts and prayers are one thing. But the real question I’m interested in is how will you honor them with action?” Frost said.
Hixon said the way to further change is for people to vote this year.
“Your vote matters. Your voice matters, and you can use your voice in our democracy with your vote. So it’s very, very important that people understand you need to vote all the way down the ballot,” Hixon said. “Don’t just vote for the president. You need to go all the way down the ballot.”
One of those down-ballot candidates is Hixon, who was elected to the School Board in 2020, after her husband was killed at the school. She’s up for reelection this year, though candidates don’t appear on the ballot with party affiliation.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.