Bill Nelson: “since I see no other Senator who seeks recognition, I thought I would take the occasion to bring the Senate up to date…”

“since I see no other Senator who seeks recognition, I thought I would take the occasion to bring the Senate up to date on what is happening down in Florida in the aftermath of 17 people being gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. As we know, we have seen those students speak out with a boldness and clarity that is rarely seen, and they are not being intimidated at all as to what needs to be done. As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of the shooting--and while some of the funerals have still been going on-- since our Florida State Legislature is in session, over the course of 2 weeks, the students have gone to the capital city of Tallahassee and have held individual meetings with State legislators. They have held a rally outside of the capital and insisted that maybe--just maybe--this might be a time that the State legislature should confront this issue head-on: that, in fact, there was something to the fact that a weapon that was originally developed for the military, an AR-15--the semiautomatic version of a military weapon--could do such damage and quickly go about killing so many people. It was 17 in the case of the high school. Just 2 years earlier, it was 49 people in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub. In between, we saw several mass killings with high-powered, military-style assault rifles in Texas, as well as 59 people being gunned down in Las Vegas.…”