Two Republican lawmakers from Florida (USA) introduced a bill that would lower the minimum age to buy a gun, including assault rifles, from 21 to 18, and adds to another bill to allow the carrying of a gun of fire without the need for a permit, the latter promoted by the governor, Ron DeSantis.
Republican Representatives Bobby Payne and Tyler Sirois introduced HB 1543 on Monday, one day before the 2023 legislative session begins.
In it, according to the website of the Florida Senate where the proposed laws are collected, it is about "lower the minimum age at which a person may purchase firearms and the age of buyers at which specified licensees are prohibited from selling or transferring firearms".
In 2018, Florida lawmakers raised the minimum age to purchase long guns from 18 to 21 after former student Nikolas Cruz of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, then 19, used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 people and injure 17 others.
Since the Parkland shooting, which occurred on February 14, 2018, several students from the school scene of the tragedy have led a national campaign for gun control that included the massive "march for our lives" in Washington, in March of that year.
They also mobilized voter registration to punish candidates who receive donations from the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) and pressured the Florida government, which approved a law in 2018 that, among other things, increases the minimum age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21.
The law also imposes a three-day waiting period for most long-range weapons purchases.
The decision by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2018 was "highly unusual in a state that had expanded gun rights for decades"recalls CBS television in Miami today, but federal judge Mark Walker confirmed in 2021 the constitutionality of the law.
Nikolas Cruz, who had a record for misconduct and aggressiveness, escaped capital punishment and was sentenced to life in prison due to a lack of unanimity in the jury.
In April of last year, Republican DeSantis took his conservative agenda a step further by pledging to sign a law allowing state residents to carry a firearm without a permit, something he called "constitutional bearing".
Currently, Floridians don’t need permits to buy a gun, but they do need permits to carry them in public, so if passed, this law would eliminate that requirement.
The term of "constitutional bearing" refers to the right to carry a firearm, either discreetly or openly, thanks to the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which gives the American people the right to keep and bear arms.
Last January, the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Republican Paul Renner, announced that the house is "list" to pass the bill promoted by DeSantis.
