![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/jay-trumbull-florida-politics-banner-ads-728x90-b-scaled-e1740688220698.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA similar effort failed in the Legislature earlier this year when the Senate wouldn\u2019t go along with the House\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n
The Democrat-backed bills would ban the sales of assault-style weapons or magazines that carry more than 10 bullets, require background checks to buy ammunition, limit where guns can be carried, and make drivers lock away guns inside their cars.<\/p>\n
Florida lawmakers had raised the age to 21 to buy rifles or shotguns after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in 2018 that killed 17 people, and former Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law. A federal appeals court in March upheld a challenge to the law.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s reluctance to tighten restrictions on access to guns and ammunition is disappointing to Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jamie, was killed in the school shooting in Parkland. One of the bills introduced this year in Tallahassee would be called \u201cJamie\u2019s Law\u201d and require background checks for ammunition purchases.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy motivation is really simple: it\u2019s to stop the next dad from feeling what I feel,\u201d Guttenberg said.<\/p>\n
Since his daughter\u2019s death, Guttenberg has worked to push what he described as gun violence prevention legislation across the country and in Washington. The ammunition bill has been introduced in Congress six times without success. Similar laws have been passed in California, New York, Connecticut, Illinois and New Jersey. It hasn\u2019t passed in the state where Jaime died.<\/p>\n Here in Florida, Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky of Boca Raton and Rep. Dan Daley of Coral Springs, introduced the ammunition\u00a0bills<\/a>\u00a0for the 2026 Legislative Session, which begins Jan. 13. In the House, Daley\u2019s\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0must pass through four Committees or Subcommittees \u2013 more than the usual three \u2013 a procedural move by Republican leadership that makes it even less likely it could be approved before the end of the 60-day Session.<\/p>\n Polsky acknowledged her bill probably won\u2019t pass in the Senate.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very doubtful or even impossible,\u201d she said. \u201cI still file these bills because they\u2019re important for my constituents and it\u2019s important policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Daley, who graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas before the shooting, also said it was unlikely the House would pass his bill. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that we don\u2019t continue to push as hard as we can because it\u2019s important policy that keeps us all safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of what I work on up here is school safety, reasonable gun reform, mental health reform, trying to make sure that something like the tragedy at my alma mater doesn\u2019t happen again,\u201d Daley said.<\/p>\n Other gun-related bills this year include:<\/p>\n \u2014 A\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0by Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat, that would ban the sale of assault-style guns and large-capacity magazines, defined as carrying more than 10 bullets.<\/p>\n \u2014 A\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0by Coconut Creek Democratic Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, the minority leader pro tempore, and a related\u00a0bill<\/a> by Polsky that would ban civilians carrying weapons in government buildings, police stations, courthouses, schools and some other sites. Hunschofsky proposed and then withdrew another related bill.<\/p>\n \u2014 A\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0by Sen. Darryl Ervin Rouson, a Democrat from St. Petersburg, and a related\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0by Reps. Yvonne Hayes Hinson, a Gainesville Democrat, and Daley, that would require guns in vehicles or boats to be stored locked and out of sight. The Senate minority leader, Lori Berman of Boynton Beach, filed a similar\u00a0bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Another\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0by Polsky would expand criminal liability if minors access guns and would require gun manufacturers to include safety warnings and demonstrate safe gun locks for buyers.<\/p>\n \u2014 A\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0by Rep. Tae Edmonds, a West Palm Beach Democrat, would designate June as \u201cResponsible Firearm Safety Awareness Month.\u201d<\/p>\n Important, recent court rulings in Florida have steered away from gun control and toward gun rights. A state appeals panel in September struck down Florida\u2019s law against openly carrying guns in public as unconstitutional. Last month, a Broward County circuit judge ruled that the state law barring people under age 21 from carrying concealed weapons violates the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n Gun rights supporters believe the bills from Democrats infringe on their rights. Logan Edge, executive director at the Florida Gun Rights Association, said he wants lawmakers to repeal the measures passed after Parkland.<\/p>\n They include \u201cred flag laws\u201d that allow courts to seize firearms from a person who is believed to be a danger to themselves or others.<\/p>\n \u201cI would assume most people who buy firearms are law-abiding citizens,\u201d Edge said. \u201cHundreds, millions, of people in America own firearms legally, and we are not the problem when it comes to violence; it\u2019s criminals.\u201d He added: \u201cI don\u2019t really see the point of, \u2018oh, if somebody\u2019s carrying an AR-15 on their shoulder, oh, they\u2019re a criminal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Edge said background checks for buying bullets \u2013 which can be ordered online or purchased in gun or sporting goods stores \u2013 wouldn\u2019t reduce violence and would raise prices for ammunition sellers. Some online sites refuse to sell bullets to customers in states like California, where background checks are required.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to pay for the background checks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Daley said he hopes other legislators will consider bills like Jaime\u2019s Law to counteract potential risks from Florida\u2019s open carry court decision.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re going to do the craziness that is open carry, then certainly the people who are open carrying should have to make sure that they are not prohibited purchasers and that they weren\u2019t able to get a gun and ammunition when they weren\u2019t supposed to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Guttenberg acknowledged Florida\u2019s political and judicial climate makes it tough to pass gun control legislation. He said he will continue to work through his foundation, Orange Ribbons for Jaime, and with aligned groups, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of what happened to my family, I\u2019ve become somebody fully embracing the reality that we can and should be doing more to reduce gun violence in America,\u201d Guttenberg said. \u201dA lot of gun violence is predictable, unfortunately, because of what we do or don\u2019t do, it becomes inevitable, but we have the potential to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Kaitlyn McCormack reports via Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. You can donate to support our students\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrats in Florida\u2019s Legislature have filed more than a dozen gun control bills \u2013 which even the party\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28859,28860,28861,28,9487,30,28862,29,28863,28864,28865,28866,28867],"class_list":["post-43928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-ammunition-purchase-regulations","tag-democratic-gun-control-bills","tag-firearm-background-checks","tag-florida","tag-florida-gun-laws","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-legislature-2026-session","tag-florida-news","tag-fred-guttenberg-advocacy","tag-jaimes-law","tag-open-carry-debate","tag-parkland-shooting-aftermath","tag-republican-gun-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/728x90_TGHUSF68.jpg\")
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