Yesterday the Florida legislature passed a gun control bill including measures to raise the age required to buy a firearm from 18 to 21, requiring a three day waiting period to buy a firearm, banning the sale of bump stocks, and creating a new way for courts to confiscate firearms from people found to be a risk. The bill also funds mental health and school security measures. Governor Rick Scott has not yet signed the bill.
But Florida isn’t the only state seeing a renewed push for gun control in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. States houses around the country have once again become the battlegrounds of the war over second amendment rights. Here in Rhode Island, thousands of gun rights activists met a much smaller contingent of gun control supporters on Tuesday.
According to Katherine Gregg who covers the state capitol for the Providence Journal:
Opposing sides in the bitter argument over gun-control filled the State House on Tuesday to debate high-profile bills cast as antidotes to recent mass shootings including the massacre of 17 people at a Florida high school.
Hours before House and Senate hearings, thousands of people — some wearing red “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America” T-shirts, many more in yellow “Gun Control Doesn’t Work” shirts from the Second Amendment Coalition — packed the hallways.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Erin Lynch Prata said it was the most people she had seen turn up for legislative hearings in her time on Smith Hill.
With tensions running so high, anything could happen. One takeaway from the gun-control debate is that there may never be a better time than now to get your guns and training.
