Ron DeSantis, a leading Republican candidate for governor and self-described “big Second Amendment guy,” says he would have vetoed the historic Florida gun-control law passed in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre.
During a South Florida campaign stop, DeSantis also said, if he already was governor, he would have suspended Broward Sheriff Scott Israel over his agency’s actions leading up to and during the Feb. 14 shooting.
The Parkland school shooting produced an outpouring of public sentiment from family members of the 17 people killed and 17 wounded, students at the school, and others throughout the state, prompting the Legislature to pass and the governor to sign gun restrictions and school-safety enhancements — reversing decades of the gun lobby’s blockage of any gun control in the state.
“I would have vetoed it,” DeSantis said in a brief interview after he spoke Monday night to several hundred people at the Palm Beach County Donald Trump Club.
The new law raises the minimum age to buy rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21, extends the previous three-day waiting period for handgun purchases to include long guns and bans bump stocks that allow firearms to perform like automatic weapons.
DeSantis, a Republican congressman who represents the area around Daytona Beach, said he would have told the Legislature to send him parts of the legislation that enhanced school security and mental health programs — but not restrictions on guns that he views as infringements on the Second Amendment.
The new law and the issue of guns is a delicate issue for Republicans, especially in a pivotal election year:
— Polls show the public overwhelmingly supports the key gun-control provisions. (Voters don’t support the component that allows arming of some school staffers, something many Republicans pushed for.)
— The politically influential National Rifle Association opposed the law and has sued to block some of its provisions.
— It was signed into law by Republican Gov. Rick Scott. The governor, who has been an NRA favorite in the past, can’t run for re-election and is running for U.S. Senate.
— The law wouldn’t have passed without the support of Florida state House Speaker Richard Corcoran, and a large number of Republican lawmakers. Corcoran is an all-but-officially declared candidate for the Republican nomination for governor against DeSantis and state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. The NRA has aimed scorching criticism at Corcoran for “betrayal” in supporting the legislation.
Derek Schwartz, a Republican candidate challenging U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, touted his pro-gun credentials when he got his turn at the mic. “I brought my second Bible with me. It’s the NRA magazine,” he said. “The future of American freedom depends on keeping the pro-gun majority in the U.S. House.”
Joe Budd, president of the Trump club and the state Republican committeeman for Palm Beach County, said he doesn’t have any interest in getting into a fight with the student survivors.
“Obviously, their emotions are strong. They were there. They were present. And it’s something that is a scar that they have to deal with,” he said. Budd added that “I still think that they’re doing the wrong thing trying to take rights away from law-abiding citizens.”
During his remarks to the Trump club on Monday, DeSantis emphasized his full-throated support for the president, who has endorsed DeSantis; condemned Republican congressional leaders for being insufficiently conservative and not appropriately supportive of Trump; and outlined his conservative agenda for Florida.
He didn’t raise the Parkland shooting, but several other speakers did, winning audience approval with their opposition to efforts that would restrict access to guns.
Jay Fant, of Jacksonville, a Republican state representative who is one of four candidates seeking his party’s nomination to run for state attorney general, criticized the new state law.
“My 19-year-old son cannot buy a firearm of any kind in the state of the state of Florida. He cannot buy a shotgun for hunting. A 20-year-old single mother, alone, cannot walk into a retail store and buy a firearm of any kind to defend herself. This is dangerous, dangerous thinking,” he said.
He said limits on guns would not make people safer. “We could ban every gun in the world, in America. Right? Right? What do you think that’s going to do to crime? Nothing! And so we’re going to be defenseless, right? And so the liberals really believe in this kind of thing,” he said. “You know what I believe in for defending the schools? Arm the schools and you’re not going to have people attacking the schools.” The audience applauded.
The crowd booed when Fant brought up Israel.
“I have never seen anything like this. He can go on TV and say ‘I have offered amazing leadership in this situation.’ Amazing leadership? Amazing leadership? How about amazing lack of accountability and amazing cowardice? He and the FBI, and you just put it all together and they point to everybody else except them,” Fant said.
In the early days after the shooting, Israel was a constant presence on television, often appearing with Republican and Democratic elected officials. But after he and his agency came under scrutiny over repeated visits to the school shooter’s home before the massacre, a deputy’s failure to enter the school and try to stop the shooting, and Israel’s assertion of leadership prowess in a widely panned cable television interview, Israel has become a political lightning rod.
Fant told the crowd Israel should resign.
“If I was governor when this happened, I would have removed him, yes,” DeSantis said after his speech. If DeSantis is elected and Israel is still sheriff when the new governor’s term begins in January, removing him is “something I will definitely consider. I want to see what happens between now and then. But the state Constitution gives the governor the ability to do that if somebody is incompetent or negligent. And I think he was both in this situation.”
DeSantis, who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the FBI, which didn’t act on tips about the shooter, has been too slow to hold anyone accountable. “If you’re not actually holding people accountable — if they don’t do their job to protect the public — then how the hell is this not going to happen in the future?”
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aman@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4550 or Twitter @browardpolitics
