Advocates for gun laws gather outside Marco Rubio’s Miami office
Advocates for stricter gun laws gathered outside of Senator Marco Rubio’s office in Miami on Friday.
David Hogg was among the dozens who stood in the rain calling for the senator to act on the recent mass shootings.
“We’re asking for a meeting with Marco Rubio right now. We understand that we don’t agree on everything. We understand that. Let’s find what we can agree on now, because that’s what we did after Parkland in Florida,,” he told the crowd.
Hogg survived the Parkland school shooting in 2018. He and a group of classmates pushed Florida lawmakers to pass red flag laws, impose a three-day waiting period for purchasing a gun and banned bump stocks. They also raised the minimum age for purchasing assault rifles to 21.
“If we could do it in Florida with a Republican state legislature … a Democratic House, Senate and Congress should be able to do it as well,” Hogg said.
A bipartisan group of Senators has discussed possible solutions to mass shootings after an 18-year-old killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
On the table is a red flag law similar to the one passed in Florida after the Parkland shooting.
“That law has been used nearly 6000 times in the state of Florida. And there’s no reason we can’t make that a national law and raise the age to 21 and do the other things to address gun violence,” Hogg said.
Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill that incentivizes states to implement similar red flag laws in 2021. The bill stops short of requiring the law.
The Senate has taken no action on that bill since it was introduced.
A spokeswoman for Rubio did not respond to questions about the bill.