2/21/2018
The Republican-led Florida House of Representatives on Tuesday decisively blocked a move by Democrats to debate a ban on assault weapons in Florida, six days after a massacre that took 17 lives at a Broward County high school.
The bill (HB 219), which would ban the sale and possession of semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines like the kind used by confessed killer Nikolas Cruz, has been mired in a House subcommittee for months and has not been heard.
Later in the day, many of the same lawmakers discussed a bill that declares porn a public health risk. The bill calls for improved “education, research and policy changes to protect Floridians, especially teenagers, from pornography”.
“Has anyone had to bury their child because of pornography?” asked Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D), who sponsored the legislation seeking to ban assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines. Rep. Kionne McGhee (D), tried to bring the gun control bill to the floor, but failed in a 36-71 party-line vote.
State lawmakers shunned the measure less than a week after a 19-year-old shooter with an AR-15-style assault rifle killed 14 students and three faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Florida allows 18-year-olds to purchase semi-automatic weapons, as Cruz did more than a year before the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High on Valentine’s Day.
