Coalition Created After 2016 Pulse Massacre Realigns To Seek Gun Reforms In Florida

Florida Phoenix

October 8, 2021

A coalition created following the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre is shifting gears to more directly fight for gun-safety legislation in Florida.

The Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence announced this week it will advocate for a state ban on semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, for starters.

State Rep. Carlos Guillermo-Smith, an Orlando Democrat, has reintroduced a bill for the 2022 legislative session (House Bill 199) to establish such a ban — as he has done every year since the Pulse massacre, in which 49 people were murdered by a lone gunman wielding high-capacity, assault-style firearms.

Since then, in 2018, a lone gunman with an assault-style weapon murdered 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland.

Sen. Gary Farmer, a Democrat from Broward County, which includes Parkland, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate (Senate Bill 214).

The Florida Legislature adopted some gun-safety provisions following the high-school massacre but not a ban on assault weapons, which was proposed by a citizens initiative as a constitutional amendment. The Florida Supreme Court quashed the effort in 2020, saying the language of the amendment was not clear enough.

Patricia Brigham, immediate past president of the League of Women Voters, will head the new coalition, which has reorganized this year as a 501(c)4 organization after its formation in 2016 as an offshoot of the League.

Andy Pelosi, executive director of the Campaign the Keep Guns Off Campus, will partner with Brigham and serve on the coalition’s board of directors.

Brigham and Pelosi said in a joint statement that the coalition will ramp up support for common-sense reforms to reduce gun violence in Florida — reforms that have largely been repelled by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“As our state Legislature and Cabinet are dominated by one party, this change will allow us to participate more directly in the electoral process,” Brigham explained. “The best place to hold those lawmakers who value easy access to firearms over the lives of Floridians accountable is at the ballot box.”

Gail Schwartz, a board member whose nephew was killed that day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, accused legislative leaders of misleading Floridians about gun issues and supporting easier access to deadly firearms, not measures to reduce gun violence.

“They have consistently pushed dangerous and reckless bills allowing unfettered access and proliferation of deadly weapons that make Floridians less safe — as evidenced by the continuing surge of gun deaths that leave behind thousands of grieving and traumatized Floridians,” Schwartz said in the joint statement.

Other coalition leaders serving as board members include Angela Gallo, former Coalition co-chair and member of the Orange County School Board; and Carrie Boyd, policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The coalition’s goals also include:

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