TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida college students who have been traumatized by the 2018 Parkland school shooting — and final week’s deadly shooting at Florida State University — are urging the Republican-controlled statehouse to not roll again gun restrictions passed within the wake of the killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty.
Gun rights activists have been fighting to unravel the 2018 law since its passage, together with a provision that raised the state’s minimal age to purchase a gun to 21.
Following the FSU capturing, student activists are urging lawmakers to support gun control policies within the closing two weeks of the legislative session, which is ready to finish Could 2.
“Nobody ought to ever need to expertise a college capturing — not to mention two — simply to need to beg lawmakers to care sufficient to cease the subsequent one,” stated Stephanie Horowitz, who was a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in 2018 and is now a graduate scholar at FSU.
Two people were killed and 6 others injured within the capturing final Thursday that terrorized FSU’s campus, a few mile (1.6 kilometers) from the state Capitol. As of Wednesday, the 20-year-old student who investigators have recognized because the suspect stays hospitalized and in good situation, officers stated. Prices aren’t anticipated to be filed towards Phoenix Ikner till he is launched.
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Logan Rubenstein, a 21-year-old junior at Florida State College, speaks at a rally in help of gun management insurance policies on the steps of Florida’s historic previous capitol on Wednesday, April 23, 2025 in Tallahassee, Fla., lower than per week after a lethal capturing on FSU’s campus. Rubenstein can be a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Fla., the place 17 folks have been killed in 2018 in what is taken into account one of many nation’s deadliest mass shootings. (AP Photograph/Kate Payne) -
College students and activists rally for gun management insurance policies outdoors of Florida’s historic previous capitol, Wednesday, April 23, 2025 in Tallahassee, Fla., lower than per week after a lethal capturing at Florida State College. (AP Photograph/Kate Payne) -
College students and activists rally for gun management insurance policies outdoors of Florida’s historic previous capitol on Wednesday, April 23, 2025 in Tallahassee, Fla., lower than per week after a lethal capturing at Florida State College. (AP Photograph/Kate Payne)
Logan Rubenstein was in eighth grade at close by Coral Springs Center Faculty when a 19-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 17 folks and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty. Now the 21-year-old is a junior at FSU.
“It wasn’t as lethal because it might have been,” Rubenstein stated of the FSU capturing. “And to me, that’s due to the legal guidelines that we handed after Parkland.”
Within the aftermath of the Parkland bloodbath, survivors and relations of the victims descended on the state capitol in a unprecedented feat of advocacy, efficiently pushing the Republican-led legislature to move wide-ranging gun legislation simply weeks afterward.
That included establishing a red flag law, which permits courts to remove weapons from individuals who pose a hazard to themselves or others, and elevating the state’s gun-buying age.
Investigators say the FSU suspect armed himself with a handgun that was the previous service weapon of his stepmother, a neighborhood sheriff’s deputy.
Below present Florida legislation, Ikner could not legally purchase a rifle from a federally licensed seller.
Rubenstein stated his message to lawmakers is to search out the “political braveness” to guard the state’s gun restrictions.
“In terms of life and demise, it’s necessary to do the appropriate factor,” he stated.
About three weeks earlier than the FSU capturing, the Florida Home handed a invoice that will decrease the state’s minimum age to buy a gun to 18. The proposal had already stalled within the state Senate earlier than the capturing, and it seems even much less more likely to advance now.
On Wednesday, Republican state Sen. Corey Simon, a former FSU soccer participant who represents Tallahassee, was moved to tears as he spoke on the Senate flooring concerning the “mindless violence.”
“At this time I rise and ask for a second of silence for my Seminole household, as we mourn these misplaced and the numerous lives which have been modified endlessly,” Simon stated, at occasions bowed over in grief.
On Wednesday, the household of one of many victims introduced his funeral will happen Friday in Greenville, South Carolina. Tiru Chabba, a 45-year-old father of two and a resident of Greenville, had been on FSU’s campus the day of the capturing as an worker of meals service vendor Aramark, in response to attorneys for his household.
Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky, whose district consists of Parkland, is among the many Democrats who’ve sponsored gun management payments this session that by no means acquired a listening to within the Capitol, the place Republicans maintain a supermajority in each chambers.
“I’m begging them to do one thing like we did after the horrific Parkland capturing,” Polsky stated at a rally with scholar activists on the steps of Florida’s historic previous Capitol on Wednesday. “I don’t know if it’s going to occur. However we’ll proceed to battle.”
Earlier than the scholars headed again into the halls of the Capitol to foyer lawmakers and their aides, Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani informed them to not let up.
“They’ve the facility to waive the principles and agenda no matter payments they need,” Eskamani stated of Republican leaders. “We’re not attempting to make this political. We are attempting to save lots of lives.”
