Editorial: Florida Senate leader takes undeserved flak for trying to save lives with gun safety measure

Shortly after the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Bill Galvano toured the school. He saw fresh blood stains. Bullet holes from the shooter’s AR-15.

It left a mark on him.

Soon after, the man who would become president of the Florida Senate helped spearhead a flurry of reforms that, modest as they were, took some courage in the “Gunshine State.” Merely by raising the age to buy a rifle to 21 from 18, lawmakers stirred the wrath of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) which acts as though the Legislature is safely in its pocket.

Now Galvano, a Bradenton Republican, is trying for one more badly needed reform before he leaves the Legislature this year because of term limits. He wants to expand background checks for gun purchases.

The NRA, predictably, is slamming Galvano for this supposedly horrendous trampling of Second Amendment rights. But so are some of his fellow Republicans.

He doesn’t deserve the grief.

To be precise, Galvano wants to close the “gun show loophole” that allows firearms to be purchased from unlicensed sellers without pausing to see if the buyer has a criminal history of domestic abuse, violent felonies or any other disqualifier. This exception is a glaring inequity and an insult to public safety.

The Senate president has thrown his weight behind a bill (SB 7028) promoted by another leading Republican senator, Tom Lee, of Thonotosassa. It has been approved by the Infrastructure and Security Committee, which Lee chairs. The measure would require background checks for gun shows and flea markets. It’s not exactly revolutionary; Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and seven other counties have had the requirement on the books for years.

For other private sales, such as the thousands arranged over the internet, a seller would only have to keep a notarized record of the transaction, including a signed affidavit that the buyer meets the requirements to buy a gun. That’s important. On the internet site Armslist.com, nearly 100,000 firearms were advertised for sale in Florida in 2018 where no background check was required; 1 in 7 prospective buyers were people who wouldn’t pass a background check, according to an investigation by Everytown for Gun Safety.

Much of the anger at Galvano stems from $500,000 that his political action committee received in 2018 from that same gun-control group, which was founded and heavily financed by Michael Bloomberg, now a Democratic candidate for president.

Donald Trump Jr. told the Daily Wire: “Any supposed Republican who proudly accepts money from Mini Mike Bloomberg and is supportive of his gun control agenda is nothing more than a stone cold RINO [Republican in name only]. The last thing Florida Republicans need is a liberal, gun-grabbing Bloomberg minion leading them in the state Senate.”

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Panhandle Trump acolyte, tweeted: “Republicans. Taking money from Bloomberg. In Florida. To pass gun control. No no no.”

Conservative Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was killed at Parkland, chimed in: “Bill Galvano might as well switch parties and call himself an anti-gun liberal.”

Such is the severe orthodoxy that suffocates the gun-control debate and, all too frequently, today’s Republican Party.

Galvano shouldn’t have to prove his Republican bona-fides after 15 years in the conservative Florida Legislature. He says he’s backing President Trump for re-election. The American Conservative Union rates him at 100%. He gets the same perfect score from Americans for Prosperity (funded by the Koch brothers).

Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Jose Oliva, though not keen on the gun bill, have lamented the attacks on the gentlemanly Galvano. “The pile-on was entirely unnecessary,” Oliva said.

Let’s be clear: This bill from Lee isn’t doing any “gun-grabbing.” Background checks aren’t some wild-eyed, crackpot idea being shoved upon a bamboozled nation by the left. A near-unanimous 94% of American voters support background checks for all gun buyers, according to a 2019 Quinnipiac Poll; that includes 90% of gun owners.

If it weren’t for the tight grip that the sclerotic NRA has held on state legislatures and members of Congress, America might have seen some sanity in its gun laws long ago.

Lee’s gun bill faces stiff odds. Oliva has predicted it won’t pass the state House of Representatives. Even if it did, there’d be so much more to do, starting with a ban on assault-style weapons.

How much more blood must be shed before Florida lawmakers find the guts to enact even a measure as common-sense and politically as universal background checks?

Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. An airbase in Pensacola. A Tallahassee yoga studio. And, of course, Parkland.

That’s just a partial list of mass shootings in this state since 2016. That’s 74 dead — just a handful of the roughly 2,500 firearm deaths each year in Florida.

Stand your ground, Sen. Galvano.