After nearly eight years, the victims’ families in Parkland apparently have still not suffered enough.

Little else explains the stubborn persistence by Republican legislators, in the face of political and legal obstacles, to lower the age to buy rifles and shotguns from 21 to 18.

For the fourth year, a bill to allow teens to buy long guns (HB 133) is back, despite being blocked for three years in the Senate. A House subcommittee Tuesday voted to lower the age back to 18, as it was before Parkland, on a party-line vote.

Eleven Republicans voted yes and five Democrats voted no.

The familiar argument for the bill is that if 18 is old enough to vote, own property and serve in the military, then it’s old enough to buy long guns, too.

“I want to err on the side of individual freedom,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tyler Sirois, R-Merritt Island.

A result of Parkland

Opponents countered that the legal age to buy tobacco or alcohol is 21, partly for safety reasons, so it should be the same for lethal weapons.

Raising the age was part of the state response to the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 14 students and three staff members were murdered by a 19-year-old who legally bought an AR-15-style weapon in Coral Springs. Next Feb. 14 will mark eight years since the shooting.

A lot of Republicans voted for the age change. Rick Scott, the governor at the time and a longtime National Rifle Association ally, signed it. It was Florida’s first new gun regulation in 20 years.

The NRA is still fighting in court to overturn the age provision, at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Human brain development

A federal appeals court in March voted 8 to 4 to uphold the age restriction, citing scientific research that the human brain is not fully developed in 18-to-21-year-olds.

“The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for exercising judgment and moderating
behavior in social situations, is one of the last regions of the brain to mature — and it doesn’t hit that point until around the age of 25,” Judge Robin Rosenbaum wrote in a concurring opinion.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has said he won’t defend the law if it reaches the Supreme Court — a recklessly irresponsible position.

Age matters. The accused killer of 21 students and staff at a Texas elementary school in 2022 was 18. The accused mass shooter at Florida State University, where two died and six were wounded in April, was 20.

But the brain development argument does not impress pro-gun advocates, who are still trying to overturn a key part of the Parkland gun law nearly eight years later.

“This body, unfortunately, made a poor decision in 2018 and passed the Parkland bill and took away the rights of adults,” Eric Friday, a Jacksonville lawyer representing the Second Amendment group Florida Carry, told lawmakers. “Tobacco is not a right. Alcohol is not a right. The right to bear arms is a right.”

Brought to tears

Five Democrats on the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee voted no, or to keep the age limit at 21. They are Reps. Mike Gottlieb of Davie, Christine Hunschofsky of Parkland, Johanna Lopez of Orlando, Kelly Skidmore of Boca Raton and Robin Bartleman of Weston.

“This Legislature continues to open the wound of the family members of the Parkland victims,” Bartleman said. “Every year, the parents are brought to tears.”

It was not by chance that the bill’s first hearing was during pre-holiday committee meetings when the Capitol is unusually quiet. That limited attendance by the bill’s opponents, but nearly a dozen members of Moms Demand Action were in attendance.

When this bill passed the House last session (as HB 759), six Republicans sensibly voted no. Five are from South Florida: Reps. Hillary Cassel of Dania Beach, Anne Gerwig of Wellington, Peggy Gossett-Seidman of Highland Beach, Chip LaMarca of Lighthouse Point and Vicki Lopez of Miami. (The sixth, Susan Valdés, is from Tampa and, like Cassel, is a former Democrat.)

With Republicans holding a supermajority, passage by the full House once again is assured. All that can defeat it is for the Senate to do the right thing again by refusing to consider it.

If lowering the gun-buying age for assault-style weapons is such a good idea, why hasn’t a single one of the 26 Republican senators sponsored a bill to do it (in an election year, by the way)?

The answer, in our opinion, is obvious: It’s because the bill would have to go to the Senate Rules Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, a Republican from Naples, who has refused to consider it in the past and who remains steadfast in opposing lowering the age.

Passidomo’s persistence is admirable. But next year is her last as a senator, and the forces in favor of teens buying long guns won’t go away.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board includes Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.