‘There’s no bill to support’: Senate president casts doubt on gun bill passing

In a signal that a top-priority bill of the National Rifle Association faces long odds this year, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said Wednesday there is little support in the Senate for a House bill that would lower the minimum age to buy rifles and other long guns from 21 to 18.

The bill, which the House started moving this week, would reverse part of a 2018 law that changed age requirements after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The gunman, then 19, used a semi-automatic rifle to carry out the attack.

Passidomo, R-Naples, told reporters that she doesn’t support the proposal — and that many other senators don’t, either.

“We don’t have it in the Senate,” she said. “Nobody’s filed it. There’s no bill to support.”

Instead, Passidomo said she has focused on ways to help students with serious mental and emotional issues to prevent future mass shootings.

“We need to get these kids identified and get help for them so that they don’t commit these acts,” she told reporters. “I believe firmly they were not born this way. Something happened to them over a period of time to turn these kids into absolute monsters.”

Several senators and House members were among those who voted to raise the age from 18 to 21 in 2018, three weeks after 17 students and educators were killed and another 17 injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

That year, Florida’s Legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Scott defied the NRA and also extended the waiting period for all gun purchases, and banned bump stocks. They also used the tragedy to attempt to address weaknesses in the mental health and school-security safety nets, and budgeted $400 million of new spending to do it. It was the first vote on gun control in the Florida Legislature in 22 years.

The House bill this year comes at a time when Republicans have a supermajority in both chambers and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to burnish his support among gun rights advocates as he eyes a presidential run.

Both the House and Senate, however, are moving forward with another priority of gun rights advocates, a measure to allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training. The bills are ready to be taken up for votes in each chamber.

Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report.