A Democratic state senator from Orlando is renewing her efforts to pass legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons in Florida following Sunday night’s mass shooting in Las Vegas that left more than 50 people dead and 500 others injured.
“Last night’s horror set a new standard, testament to the sheer evil unleashed by one man armed with multiple high caliber automatic weapons, intent on provoking death and injury to so many,” said Sen. Linda Stewart. ““The senseless killings of Americans cannot be the norm for our Country…Nor should the easy sale of guns designed for maximum carnage.”
Sen. Linda Stewart
D-Orlando
Stewart filed legislation last year following the massacre of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which until Sunday was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Her legislation was never heard in the House or Senate.
“The bill in 2017 did not get one committee hearing,” Stewart said Monday. “I am pressuring our State Senate leadership to allow this year’s bill to have a hearing, or at the very least, a workshop – any avenue to bring this up for public discussion in a formal public setting.”
In August, Stewart filed another bill–SB 196–for the upcoming legislative session.
The new legislation defines an assault weapon as any gun “capable of fully automatic, semiautomatic, or burst fire at the option of the user.” The bill goes on to list a number of guns that would be included in such a ban, including all AK and AR series weapons.
“Hold hearings on this bill. Let the NRA speak. But let the other voices – the mothers, the fathers, the sons and daughters, the multitude of Floridians who are fed up with the carnage – have their say, too,” Stewart pleaded to legislative leaders.
The AR15 in the image you have isn’t one that uses the ammo sitting next to it. That’s clearly a .22 rimfire version. It’s easy to tell by looking at the short bolt carrier assembly in the ejection port. AR15’s do use rounds that look similar to the ones you see in that image, but that gun in the image uses ammo much smaller and much less powerful than the .223 or 5.56mm ammo that a “real” AR 15 fires. I just thought I’d point that out because it’s a bit misleading to have ammo that a standard AR15 uses next to a little .22 version rifle. It’s like showing a Honda Civic with a 502 Chevy V8 next to it as if the Honda has that engine in it, when it clearly doesn’t.
So she basically wants to ban anything other than bolt-action? We don’t even know what type of gun was used yet in the shooting. From the sounds I heard in videos, it was a full auto gun, which is already illegal.
Gun Legislation will not prevent mass killings, the only thing we can do to prevent occurrences like that or worse from taking place is to somehow improve upon the morality of the people living in this country. Helping those who suffer from mental illnesses get treatment while still upholding the constitution. Educate people starting in grammar school about the consequences of gun violence and give comprehensive firearm training to all people of age, who aren’t felons also we could go to constitutional carry so people will be in a position to stop the next attack like that from happening. Just think if some of the people inside the hotel had been in possession of a gun themselves then they could’ve shot the gunman and lives would’ve been saved.
Also if criminals know the people they plan to victimize are armed they are far less likely to try anything. Our answer isn’t less guns it’s more, ban guns to where only criminals have them then try to protect yourselves with laws criminals don’t care about the law that’s why they’re criminals.