VP Harris calls for more 'red flag' laws on visit to Parkland school massacre site
PARKLAND — Vice President Kamala Harris called on more states to pass "red flag" laws to curb gun violence as she toured the site Saturday of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre that left 17 people dead.
“There won't be complete agreement on all that must be done to address these kinds of tragedies,” Harris said, speaking in the Broward County school's gymnasium. “But there are some that frankly, to use a colloquialism, are just no-brainers.”
Harris met with victims' families Saturday afternoon at the high school where a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members on Valentine's Day in 2018. Walking with U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Coral Springs, and the group of family members, Harris went through the building of blood-stained hallways, where the scene remains untouched since the shooting.
The vice president described her walk-through as a moment “frozen in time,” where desks were positioned the same way they were, notes were scattered among desks and opened snacks sat on desks.
“The trauma that results from this kind of violence that takes place every day in America and in a profound number took place here six years ago,” Harris said. “Trauma that for the most part, though they will try to mitigate it, the pain will never completely be healed.”
In the gymnasium, Harris spoke about ways the Biden Administration aims to combat gun violence. One of them is through the launch Saturday of a National Extreme Resource Protection Order Resource Center. The Department of Justice center will help states and public agencies optimize the use of red-flag laws, which allow courts to issue orders for firearm removal from individuals at risk to harming themselves or others.
Harris also called for states without red-flag laws to pass them, and encouraged states that already have them to use the millions of available federal dollars set aside for that purpose. Of the 21 states that have red-flag laws, only six are using funds from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which includes about $750 million to implement state crisis-intervention programs.
Six years post-Parkland: Six years after Parkland: The complicated legacy of a shocking, saddening school shooting
Florida, which has a red-flag law, falls on the list of states Harris is calling out for missing out on federal dollars. Last year, Florida’s Democratic congressional delegation criticized Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis because the state did not apply for millions in federal outlays that could have been used for gun violence prevention.
Harris’ visit through Parkland high school's blood-stained halls
Harris is one of multiple elected officials who has scheduled a visit to the barricaded three-story Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building. Since the shooting, the building hasn’t been touched so that the evidence could be used for court proceedings in trying gunman Nicolas Cruz.
Cruz was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2022.
U.S. lawmakers and officials, often Democrats, have traveled to Parkland frequently this past year to visit the untouched crime scene before its scheduled demolition this summer. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited the shuttered building earlier this year.
Visits to Parkland's crime scene: U.S. education secretary, top House Democrat tour Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting site
Moskowitz, a Democrat who represents Parkland, has spent much of his time in Congress bringing lawmakers to Parkland to tour the building. In a statement before Harris’ visit, Moskowitz described the site as a “literal time capsule of one of the worst mass shootings in American history.”
While serving in the state House, Moskowitz worked with then-Gov. Rick Scott and state Republicans to enact gun safety measures into Florida law after the tragedy.
Advocating for gun violence prevention since the Parkland mass shooting is a top priority for Moskowitz, who is a graduate of Stoneman Douglas. In Congress, he advocates for laws improving gun violence prevention efforts and touts Florida’s red-flag laws, which have been used thousands of times since their implementation, and which he helped craft.
Scott, who signed these gun safety reforms into law after the shooting, said in a statement before Harris’ visit that he continued to stand behind the reforms he made in 2018, but accused the Biden Administration of encouraging red-flag laws such as one in California that “abandons due process to more quickly and easily take constitutional rights away from law-abiding Americans.”
Stephany Matat is a politics reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY-Florida network. Reach her at smatat@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Harris visits blood-stained halls of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
