logo
Ileana Garcia has ‘zero regret' on voting down campus-carry bill

Ileana Garcia has ‘zero regret' on voting down campus-carry bill

Yahoo18-04-2025

Gun wall rack with rifles. Credit: Getty Images
In 2018, the Florida Legislature reacted to the mass shooting in Parkland by passing major safety regulations. Chances for a such a response to Thursday's shootings at Florida State University are slim.
That doesn't mean legislators are ignoring the politics of guns.
Start with Miami Republican state Sen. Illeana Garcia, who joined with three Senate Democrats in a committee vote last month rejecting a proposal sponsored by then-GOP Sen. Randy Fine (SB 814) to allow concealed weapons on college and university campuses.
'I have zero regret,' Garcia said on X late Thursday night about that vote, in which she joined with Democratic Sens. Jason Pizzo, Mack Bernard, and Carlos Guillermo Smith in opposing the proposal. Two other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were absent for the vote.
'Proud to have voted against your moronic campus carry bill, that didn't have a house companion,' Garcia said, referring to Fine. 'This decision wasn't about partisan politics; it was rooted in common sense. The incident at FSU was tragic, but the real issue lies not with the firearm itself, but with the factors that led to it. The individual involved was the child of a deputy sheriff and had knowledge of weapon handling, yet chose to act recklessly.'
Fine noted the vote in a posting on X on Friday, where he included an excerpt of his speech in the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 25.
'There is no magic force field that keeps guns from coming onto our college campuses,' he said. 'Less than one month ago, in my last bill presentation as a Florida Senator, I attempted to give adults the same right to protect themselves on campus as they have off. My four-minute closing speech is below. For the first and only time in 8.5 years in the Legislature, I failed. By a vote of 3-4, with two absent, the committee voted to keep universities 'gun-free zones.' An offensive name given what happened yesterday. The no vote included all three Democrats plus one so-called Republican. I am incredibly grateful to the law enforcement who ran into the gunfire yesterday to subdue the gunman. But in the time that took, this murderer was able to shoot seven people, two of whom have died. Today, I wonder if one of those seven had been able to defend themselves, the outcome would have been different. In any event, I will continue praying for all.'
Following the Parkland school shooting in February of 2018, within weeks the Florida Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott came together to pass the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public High School Safety Act, a comprehensive measure that included numerous provisions regarding firearms and school safety, plus community mental health resources.
There have been attempts over the past three legislative sessions to repeal a provision of that law that bans individuals under 21 years of age from purchasing rifles and shotguns, and prohibiting licensed firearm dealers, importers, and manufacturers, from selling them to people of that age. Those measures have passed the House in 2023, 2024, and this year. In the past two years, the Senate did not pass a companion measure, and a similar measure has yet to advance in the 2025 legislative session.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Retired Justice Stephen Breyer's brother assigned to Newsom National Guard lawsuit
Retired Justice Stephen Breyer's brother assigned to Newsom National Guard lawsuit

Fox News

time3 minutes ago

  • Fox News

Retired Justice Stephen Breyer's brother assigned to Newsom National Guard lawsuit

The brother of retired liberal Justice Stephen Breyer was assigned Tuesday to preside over the lawsuit that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom brought against the Trump administration in California this week. Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, is set to oversee the case, which alleges President Donald Trump deprived California of its sovereignty by federalizing thousands of National Guard soldiers in response to anti-immigration enforcement protests and riots in Los Angeles County. Breyer is the younger brother of Stephen Breyer, who was appointed by Clinton to the high court and served on the bench for nearly three decades beginning in 1994. Stephen Breyer's retirement led to former President Joe Biden replacing him with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Charles Breyer, who serves on the federal bench in the Northern District of California, will oversee a lawsuit that pits Newsom, one of the country's most prominent Democrats and a possible 2028 presidential contender, against Trump. Newsom alleged in the lawsuit that Trump made an "unprecedented power grab" by mobilizing the National Guard in his state, a highly unusual move for a president to do without the consent of the governor. Trump has said the move was necessary to protect ICE personnel and federal buildings as some protesters engaged in unlawful assembly and pelted law enforcement with concrete bottles and other hard objects. After the National Guard proclamation, more unrest broke out in parts of the county involving rioters setting fire to several self-driving cars and looting some stores. Newsom alleged Trump's decision to send in the military spurred more chaos. Federal court cases in the Northern District of California are assigned by the Clerk of the Court "blindly and at random" through an automated system, according to the court's website. Fox News Digital reached out to Charles Breyer's chambers for comment on his assignment. The news of Charles Breyer presiding over the case comes as some Republicans have floated the theory that Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., secretly took on Trump cases to sabotage them in favor of plaintiffs. Boasberg directly addressed the claims during a court hearing, saying his assignments, like most others in the court, were randomly assigned by a computer.

Balance of Power: Early Edition 6/10/2025
Balance of Power: Early Edition 6/10/2025

Bloomberg

time12 minutes ago

  • Bloomberg

Balance of Power: Early Edition 6/10/2025

On the early edition of Balance of Power, Bloomberg Washington Correspondents Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz discuss the latest developments from protests in Los Angeles to trade talks in London. On today's show, Bloomberg Washington Correspondent Tyler Kendall, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress Senior Democracy Fellow Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, Stonecourt Capital Partner Rick Davis, Republican Senator David McCormick of Pennsylvania and Constitutional Accountability Center President Elizabeth Wydra. (Source: Bloomberg)

Live Updates: California Asks Court to Block Use of Troops in ICE Raids
Live Updates: California Asks Court to Block Use of Troops in ICE Raids

New York Times

time12 minutes ago

  • New York Times

Live Updates: California Asks Court to Block Use of Troops in ICE Raids

In downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, protesters faced off with law enforcement officers. Disinformation about the events has circulated online. Misleading photographs, videos and text have spread widely on social media as protests against immigrant raids have unfolded in Los Angeles, rehashing old conspiracy theories and expressing support for President Trump's actions. The flood of falsehoods online appeared intended to stoke outrage toward immigrants and political leaders, principally Democrats. They also added to the confusion over what exactly was happening on the streets, which was portrayed in digital and social media through starkly divergent ideological lenses. Many posts created the false impression that the entire city was engulfed in violence, when the clashes were limited to only a small part. There were numerous scenes of protesters throwing rocks or other objects at law enforcement officers and setting cars ablaze, including a number of self-driving Waymo taxis. At the same time, false images spread to revive old conspiracies that the protests were a planned provocation, not a spontaneous response to the immigration raids. The confrontation escalated on Monday as new protests occurred and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced — on X — that he was mobilizing 700 Marines from a base near Los Angeles to guard federal buildings. They are expected to join 2,000 members of the California National Guard whom Mr. Trump ordered deployed without the authorization of the state's governor, Gavin Newsom, who normally has command of the troops. The latest deployments prompted a new wave of misleading images to spread — some purporting to show Marines and the military service's weapons in action. One was a still from 'Blue Thunder,' a 1983 action-thriller about a conspiracy to deprive residents of Los Angeles of their civil rights. It features a climactic dogfight over the city's downtown. Darren L. Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, said conservatives online were 'building up the riots in a performative way' to help bolster Mr. Trump's claims that Los Angeles had been taken over by 'violent, insurrectionist mobs.' Dr. Linvill said the posts were also 'a bit self-fulfilling.' 'As they direct attention to it,' he said, 'more protesters will show up.' James Woods, the actor who has become known for spreading conspiracy theories, used his account on X to rail against the state's elected officials, especially Mr. Newsom, a Democrat. He also reposted a fabricated quote, attributed to former President Barack Obama, discussing a secret plot to impose socialism on the country, as well as a video of burning police cars that was from 2020. An innocuous photograph of a pallet of bricks, actually posted on the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia, was cited as proof that the protests were organized by nonprofit organizations supported by George Soros, the financier who, to the feverishly conspiratorial right, has become a mastermind of global disorder. Image These bricks are actually from an image on the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia. Credit... The New York Times 'It's Civil War!!' an account on X wrote on Saturday, claiming that the bricks had been placed near the offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 'Democrat militants.' X posted a Community Note pointing out that the photograph had nothing to do with the protests, but it still was seen more than 800,000 times. It was also widely reposted, including by several seemingly inauthentic accounts in Chinese. The online trope dates at least to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. It reappeared in 2022 after a conspiratorial post by Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who suggested that bricks for a paving project near Capitol Hill were intended for violent protests after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 'These days, it feels like every time there's a protest, the old clickbaity 'pallets of bricks' hoax shows up right on cue,' the Social Media Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on Bluesky. 'You know the one, photos or videos of bricks supposedly left out to encourage rioting. It's catnip for right-wing agitators and grifters.' It also fits into the narrative that protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic. On his own platform, Truth Social, Mr. Trump also suggested that the protesters were 'Paid Insurrectionists!' Numerous posts echoed unsubstantiated claims that the protests were the work of Mr. Soros as well as local nongovernment organizations or Democratic elected officials, including the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. Some posts disparaging the protests were shared by accounts with deceptive handles that closely resembled those of official government sources or news organizations. Mike Benz, a conspiracy-minded influencer on X who last year claimed that the Pentagon used the pop star Taylor Swift as part of a psychological operation to undercut Mr. Trump, advanced an outlandish theory that the mayor had links to the Central Intelligence Agency and had helped start riots in the city where she lives. He based that simply on Ms. Bass's role as a board member for the National Endowment for Democracy, the congressionally mandated organization formed during the Reagan administration to promote democratic governance around the world. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the theme was echoed by accounts across social media linked to Russia, which often amplifies content that discredits the United States. The Kremlin and its supporters have long accused Mr. Soros or the United States government of covertly sponsoring 'color revolutions' to overthrow governments — from the Arab Spring countries swept up by mass street protests in 2011 to Ukraine. 'It is nationwide conspiracy of liberals against not only Trump but against American people in general,' Aleksandr Dugin, a prominent nationalist in Russia, wrote on X on Sunday. Disinformation in situations like these spreads so quickly and widely that efforts to verify facts cannot keep up, said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, an advocacy organization that studies the intersection of media, technology and the law. She described it as part of 'a much longer effort to delegitimize peaceful resistance movements.' 'Information warfare is always a symptom of conflict, stoked often by those in power to fuel their own illiberal goals,' she said. 'It confuses audiences, scares people who might otherwise have empathy for the cause and divides us when we need solidarity most.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store