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It was late last week when Florida’s Republican-led state House passed a bill to lower the legal age to buy a rifle or long gun. Under the status quo, Floridians must be 21 to legally purchase such a weapon, but GOP legislators want to lower the limit to 18.
Oddly enough, Florida raised the age limit from 18 to 21 in response to the deadly mass shooting in Parkland that left 17 people dead, but that was five years ago. Now, Republicans are prepared to undo the reform.
Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters yesterday that he’s on board with the change:
“Look, I was in Iraq. I was there with 18-year-old Marines, 18-year-old soldiers that were put out in the streets of Fallujah and Ramadi and told they had to risk their lives for this country. Then they come back after doing that, and even though they were carrying a firearm the whole time, they’re told you cannot exercise your Second Amendment rights here as an adult and as a veteran?”
The Republican governor also denounced the 2018 change that Florida Republicans helped approve.
DeSantis’ comments came one day after a mass shooting in Florida that killed four people, including three children.
As for the substance of the governor’s argument, I can appreciate why some, especially on the right, might find this sensible. If American teenagers serving in the military are handed rifles, why deny those same young people the same weapons on U.S. soil?
But the closer one looks at the governor’s comparison, the more problematic it becomes.
Let’s assume for the sake of conversation that DeSantis’ version of events is accurate, and he served alongside 18-year-old Marines in Iraq. What the Florida Republican described is, in a rather literal sense, a battlefield: The United States was at war in Iraq, which necessarily meant providing weapons to American servicemen and women.
Those 18-year-old Marines serving with DeSantis were handed rifles, not because the teenagers wanted to exercise their Second Amendment rights, but because the military wanted to provide them with the tools needed to effectively shoot an enemy during combat on foreign soil.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing.
But — and this is the important part — Florida isn’t Iraq. Marines of any age need powerful firearms on the battlefield to protect themselves and execute their missions. Why should the standards be different for civilians on domestic soil? Because civilians on domestic soil aren’t fighting wars.
The pending state legislation is nevertheless headed to Florida’s GOP-led Senate. It’s likely to pass.