TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — While not the intended focus of this week’s special legislative session in Tallahassee, the shooting in Uvalde is renewing calls for stricter gun laws in the country and in Florida.
Democratic state lawmakers believe a first step could be expanding the state’s current “red flag” gun laws.
“I’m tired of people playing politics with people’s lives,” said State Rep. Dotie Joseph (D-North Miami) said during a press conference Wednesday.
“As a parent I am appalled that we have done zero to deal with this issue,” added State Sen. Annette Taddeo (D-Miami).
But, Florida has done something. State lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle, came together in support of "red flag" legislation after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The bipartisan measure passed the same year as that shooting, which killed 14 students and three staff members.
"We passed a law, and we're four years later. And thank God nothing like this has happened again in Florida,” Republican Rep. Randy Fine told WESH-TV.
Florida is one of 19 states to have “red flag” gun laws on the books. The protections, legally known as, “Risk Protection Orders,” allow law enforcement members to petition the courts to confiscate guns from people who are a threat to themselves or others.
Last year, at the national level, GOP Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott introduced a bill that would dedicate DOJ funds to "incentivize," states to adopt similar red-flag laws to Florida's. The proposal has not moved.
”We have become so numb to so many tragedies that we need to make these things personal again,” said State Rep. Christina Hunschofsky (D), who was mayor of Parkland at the time of the shooting.
In the past few years since the law was adopted in Florida, it’s been used thousands of times.
“That law has been used 5,000 times in Florida since the bill's passage, it has prevented gun violence and has saved lives, but it is limited,” says State Rep. Carlo G. Smith (D-Orlando)
Democratic state lawmakers, like Smith, want to see even stricter laws. They say they want a "red flag" law expansion to allow family members to “flag” relatives.
“If we could expand this to loved ones or family members, close people to an individual who may be wanting to inflict harm in our community, I think that would be a smart common sense solution that strikes the right balance between our constitutional rights, but also wanting to make sure we’re doing everything to keep people in our community safe, especially babies,” said State Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa).
“It's important that in Florida, we expand on the good move we made by enacting the red light law in the first place to make sure that we can continue preventing these incidences of gun violence in the state of Florida,” Rep. Smith added.
In the wake of the Uvalde elementary school shooting, State Rep. Jackie Toledo (R-Tampa) told 10 Tampa Bay, "we need to do everything we can to address the issue," but first "need to find out what the issues were."
"As a mother of five, I'm devastated by the loss of those children. I mean, that went to school the morning I cannot even imagine or fathom that as a parent," she said.
For Toledo, the path forward includes examining all possible solutions to gun violence.
"We need to do everything we can to address the issue. And we need to find out what the issues were and that's what I'm looking forward to getting the data because mental health is a huge concern. It's been a concern for many decades and what do we do about it? Are there enough resources for people, are there are enough flags? Are we addressing those flags and we need to prevent any tragedies like that from ever happening again," Toledo added.
Following the 2018 Parkland shooting, the state legislature passed other gun-related laws including raising the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21.