Florida Senate to look at what prompts mass shootings

TALLAHASSEE — After a summer when the nation was stunned by a series of mass shootings, the Florida Senate is set Monday to explore what leads to such violence – a move some say will point to a need for stricter gun regulation in the Sunshine State.

University experts, law enforcement officials and mental health professionals are expected to testify before the Infrastructure and Security Committee, which is taking up what is billed as a workshop on “mass attacks and targeted violence.”

Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, ordered the hearing early last month, after shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio left 31 people dead. At the time, Galvano posted on Facebook that “thoughts and prayers must yield action.”

By the time August ended, another shooting spree near Odessa, Texas claimed seven lives, which along with other attacks brought the month’s grim total to 53 people dead in mass killings by firearms.

Galvano said he wants his Senate to “better understand the various factors” that lead to mass shootings, which experts say include a rise in hate groups, underlying racism and misogyny, lack of access to mental health treatment and ready access to firearms.

The gun issue is a touchy one for a Republican-controlled Legislature that declined to pass any firearms restrictions for three decades, until approving a package of changes following last year’s slaughter at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“I don’t see any expert on gun violence prevention who is scheduled to speak on the Senate panel,” said Gay Valmont, Florida leader of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America.

Galvano has emphasized that he wants a wide-ranging analysis of the gun attacks, with hearings expected to continue through the 2020 legislative session, which begins in January.

It is likely that some kind of legislation will emerge in the Senate, although the House has not indicated it plans to embrace the topic as committee hearings in advance of the session start next week, and continue through the fall.

On Monday, Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight will testify on behalf of the state’s Sheriffs Association, along with Rick Swearingen, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Phil Archer, state attorney for Brevard and Seminole counties is scheduled to address the committee, along with substance abuse and mental health experts, and a pair of Florida State University criminologists who have studied mass shootings and hate crimes.

No legislation is expected to be discussed. But Senate Democrats have proposed several bills certain to loom in the background of Monday’s discussion.

Senate Democratic Leader Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville earlier pushed Galvano to include in his call for action a ban on assault-style weapons and expanding the state’s “red flag” law to family members, which would enhance what is now a provision that allows only law enforcement to ask a judge to remove weapons from someone considered a threat.

Florida’s red flag law was approved after Parkland. Lawmakers after that shooting approved a host of school security initiatives and also increased the age for buying a firearm from 18 to 21, a step being challenged in federal court by the National Rifle Association.

Gibson and other Democrats also are seeking to broaden the state’s background checks to include online and other private gun sales, ending the so-called “gun show loophole” that also figures in much of the debate in Congress over firearms.

Valmont’s organization supports this approach.

"Our message is simple,” Valmont said. “Background checks will save lives in Florida.”