Opinion
Citing a circuit split, the NRA has filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is National Rifle Association v. Glass, and it’s a seven-year-old battle to correct a law passed in haste by the Florida Legislature, wrongfully depriving hundreds of thousands of young adults of their civil liberties.
Just 24 days after the Parkland murders, Florida Governor (now Senator) Rick Scott signed SB 7026, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. The bill was introduced by Republican State Senator Kathleen Passidomo just three days after the shooting and about nine months before the Florida state commission created to investigate the shooting released its preliminary findings.
Among the provisions of the new law was, quite literally, the stripping of the Second Amendment rights of every young adult in the state. The minimum age to purchase a rifle or shotgun went from 18 to 21.
The law was already in effect by December 2018 when the commission released a 400-page report. The report put the blame on the shooter, but was very critical of all the circumstances that allowed the incident.
The Broward County School’s diversion policies, the failure of the FBI to forward multiple tips about the shooter to its Miami field office, and the failures of the staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School all created the opportunity for the shooter. Even at the last minute, the shooting might have been averted had the school repaired a lock on a security fence and the staff member assigned to monitor the gate been paying attention.
After the first shot was fired, the commission described the response of the school resource officer as “abysmal” and was very critical of the actions of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
The commission didn’t have much to say about the Smith & Wesson M&P15. Not surprising: The timeline of the shooting showed virtually any rifle other than a single-shot or bolt-action would have worked equally well. The killer didn’t even use standard-capacity magazines.
And what were the results of this? The school board president who introduced the diversion program was reelected; the citizens of Broward County continued to support the sheriff until the governor stripped him of office; the derelict deputy retired; the shooter took a plea deal and got 34 consecutive life sentences without parole; and more than 725,000 adult citizens ages 18, 19, and 20 were deprived of the right to buy a firearm.
To put it bluntly, the Florida legislature and U.S. Senator Scott should be ashamed of themselves. They should be further shamed by the fact that it has been more than seven years, and a Republican-dominated legislature has repeatedly failed to restore those rights. It’s said Senator Passidomo, who became majority leader the same year her bill was enacted, quashed efforts to repeal the age restrictions.
Instead, this has become an absurd court battle over whether Floridians were ever allowed to buy firearms at 18. The argument is tied to the age of majority, and courts have held, with a straight face, that purchases of guns were limited to those who had reached the legal age of majority.
This ignores the Militia Act of 1792. In addition, it ignores the 49 years between the effective date of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which set the minimum age to purchase long guns at eighteen, and the signing of the Florida law. This also includes the nearly three years the Gun Control Act of 1968 was in effect prior to the 1971 ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which effectively lowered the age of majority to eighteen. There has never been any indication the federal government has linked the age to buy guns to the age of majority.
The Chicken Little response to the Parkland shooting indicates Sunshine State lawmakers also were unaware the Parkland shooter was the only person under 21 to commit a mass shooting in at least 49 years and remains the only one today.*
The big questions are, first, why there was a rush to deprive hundreds of thousands of citizens of their constitutionally protected rights because one, or 0.00014%, of them committed an evil act? Equally important is why the Florida Legislature refuses admit their hasty error and correct their poor decision?
*Source: The Violence Prevention Project mass shooter database and additional information covering incidents from September 1949 to December 2024.
About Bill Cawthon
Bill Cawthon first became a gun owner 55 years ago and has been an active advocate for Americans’ civil liberties for more than a decade. He is the information director for the Second Amendment Society of Texas.
