Friday marked seven years since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. A gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 more — students and teachers.
At the time, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz was a leading Democrat in the Florida House. He remembers it well.
“It really feels like just yesterday when I was coming home and seeing the school looking like a war zone and then going to funerals, passing funerals to go to other funerals, meeting with the family members and the parents and, you know, the school I graduated from,” Moskowitz said.
Today, Moskowitz is in his second term in Congress, representing the Parkland area.
He joined "The Florida Roundup" on Friday to talk about the gun control laws he helped pass and the future of gun control in Florida.
Post-Parkland aftermath
Moskowitz led the charge to pass the first gun restrictions in Florida in years, including banning anyone under 21 from buying a rifle; a red flag law allowing police to temporarily remove a gun from someone considered a danger; and hundreds of millions of dollars for school security.
Moskowitz said the red flag law has been invoked thousands of times.
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“Those have now been used 19,000 times; 19,000 times sheriffs in the state of Florida have deemed someone a danger to themselves or a danger to others," Moskowitz said. "I mean, if 1% of those cases dealt with a mass shooting, I mean, we've prevented a significant number of tragedies.”
Moskowitz emphasized the rights granted by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution but says that doesn’t mean some laws restricting gun access shouldn’t be passed.
“We have a Second Amendment in this country. No one is doubting that. But that doesn't mean that we can’t have sensible gun restrictions," Moskowitz said. "That doesn't mean that we need weapons of war on the street. That doesn't mean that it needs to be easy. It doesn't mean that we should have people that be able to get silencers that are mentally ill.”
During the 2022 legislative session, Republican Senate President Bill Galvano asked lawmakers to study the causes behind gun violence, but it didn’t get a lot of traction.
The future of gun control in Florida
In December, Republican state lawmakers in Florida filed bills that would roll back gun control measures passed in the wake of the Parkland shootings.
These would allow open carry, repeal the red flag law and allow people under 21 to buy a rifle again.
Moskowitz said just because they’ve been proposed, doesn’t mean they’re going to become law.
“People have been filing these things for political posturing, and the Legislature has not taken them up," Moskowitz said. "They were filed last year, and they didn't get taken up. I suspect these won't be taken up.”
Moskowitz said he’s going to propose a “number of school safety measures” and will continue to work on red flag laws, saying those laws and universal background checks have bipartisan support.
“Like 80% of America believes in these two critical things of universal background checks and red flag laws, right?" Moskowitz said. "You can have the Second Amendment and your right to bear arms in this country coexist with red flag laws and universal background."
Moskowitz said he also supports legislation that holds parents responsible “in the event of these egregious cases.”
“There’s a right to possess arms in the in this country, but in this age group, let's shift that burden to the parents," Moskowitz said. "We trust the parents, right? In fact, my Republican colleagues say that all the time — parents, parents, parents should be in charge of a kid's education, which I agree with, and so we wanted to shift that burden to parents.”
“So parents can take your kid hunting. You can buy them a gun for Christmas. That's allowed in the state of Florida, but what's not allowed is for that 19-year-old to go do it on their own without their parents knowing. We think just that level of parent supervision can help mitigate these tragedies.”
Florida lawmakers will convene March 4 for the annual legislative session.
This article was compiled off an interview conducted by Tom Hudson for “The Florida Roundup.”
