President Biden recently joined communities at Majority Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida to issue a call for tougher gun laws. His statement comes on the anniversary of the Parkland school shooting massacre after student Nikolas Cruz opened fire with an AR-15 rifle that left 17 dead.
“Three years ago today, a lone gunman took the lives of 14 students and three educators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In seconds, the lives of dozens of families, and the life of an American community, were changed forever. This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call. We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden called on Congress to enact gun law reforms, including background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who “knowingly put weapons of wars on our streets.” He said the American people owe it to those they’ve lost and left behind to make a change. “The time to act is now,” Biden declared.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also tweeted out requesting that the nation needs to renew its commitment to ensuring “no family or community endures the pain of gun violence.” She talked about House Democrats passing H.R.8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act. Others argued that states need more money on mental health services, not mandatory gun registration. Haven’t Democrats learned that criminals don’t care about the law yet?
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued school safety measures across the state, such as panic alert systems in school and strengthening programs meant to prevent violence before they occur. The panic alert measure was dubbed “Alyssa’s Law,” in honor of 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed three years ago.
He reminded the Parkland community just how “strong and united Floridians can be” in the face of such a devastating loss and ordered flags be lowered to half staff from sunrise to sunset across the state. He said their state and nation will never forget February 14, 2018, and asked the country to mourn the lives of the victims, tweeting a list of their names and saying their legacies will endure.
The suspect is still awaiting trial due to to the coronavirus pandemic shutting down court operations and making in-person jail access difficult for the defense. Cruz’s lawyers have said they would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence while prosecutors refuse to budge on seeking the death penalty. No trial date has been set.
Senate Democrats have said pushing new gun reform laws “won’t be easy” but that they haven’t given up. They’ve tried to keep preventative measures as vague as possible so they can end up banning everything in sight. Sen. Richard Blumenthal even admitted that fighting gun violence has become “not only good policy, but good politics” too. They’ve been perpetuating fear that guns kill people so they can strip and ban everything in sight. It’s clear they just want personal accountability out the window and to take away your Second Amendment rights.
