LWVFL Gun Safety Chair and Board Member Ben Friedman wrote the following column for the Orlando Sentinel. The takeaway, “we do not need more guns in schools; we need more leaders in Tallahassee”.
After last year’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland left 17 dead and many more injured, we saw some refreshing, albeit overdue, movement on combating gun violence in Florida. The law passed by a bipartisan coalition in the Legislature and signed by then-Gov. Rick Scottwas not as comprehensive as some hoped, but made some major progress in the fight for gun safety. With the advocacy of grassroots organizations like the League of Women Voters, the Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, and the Parkland student-formed March for Our Lives, the legislature raised the age to purchase a long gun to 21, mandated a 3-day waiting period, and banned bump stocks, among other achievements.
Last year’s law is proof that when our leaders choose to do so, they are capable of putting partisanship aside, looking past the propaganda, and addressing the public safety crisis perpetuated for decades by the morally vacuous gun industry in America.
Ah, but that was last year.
Click here for the rest of this well written analysis.