Former Florida Governor and current Florida Senator Rick Scott said that Democrats’ reaction to regular mass shootings is always a step too far when asked about what Congress should do following the school shooting in Uvalde.
“[Democrats] constantly go to taking somebody’s Second Amendment rights
away,” Scott told Orlando Weekly reporter Matt Laslo. “The first thing … Democrats want to do is take away people’s gun rights and I’m not going to support that.”
Scott notably broke a bit from right-wing orthodoxy following the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in 2018 (though some have questioned his response to the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando). After Parkland, Scott signed a law that banned anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing rifles, running afoul of the NRA. Prior to that, Scott had an A+ rating with the group.
Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida’s senior senator, is No. 5 among the 10 politicians who’ve taken the most money from the NRA, with a career total of $3.3 million.
“They’ve been trying to get good legislation passed,” Scott said of the Parkland families who have pushed for further gun control. “It’s hard. I mean, it comes back. [Uvalde] just
reminds you how difficult that time was for them and still is for them, because they’ll never see their kids again.”
Scott does support an act that would expand the Secret Service’s ability to track people they believe might become school shooters. However, he thinks the question of gun control should be left to the states.
“I think most of the things, you should be doing at the state [level]. But clearly, the federal government could have a significant role in the threat assessment, sharing information,” he said.
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