Will Rick Scott’s record on guns hurt his candidacy for GOP leadership?
While the public campaign to get Senate Republicans to select Rick Scott as their next leader has reportedly been a turn-off for some members of the body, could it be that his signing of gun safety legislation while governor of Florida will give GOP members permission to deny the Florida man his shot at succeeding Mitch McConnell in Washington?
The issue that has rankled Second Amendment activists goes back to Scott’s signing of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act in March 2018. That took place less than four weeks after the Parkland school massacre, which led to the deaths of 17 people.
The bipartisan legislation raised the minimum age to purchase a rifle from 18 to 21; required a three-day waiting period to purchase a firearm; allowed some teachers and other school personnel who underwent special training to arm themselves, and allowed for extreme-risk protection orders, better known as a “red flag” law.
That provision allows law enforcement to ask a judge to temporarily bar dangerous individuals from possessing or purchasing a firearm.Following mass shootings in the summer of 2019, Scott wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post declaring that he supported a national version of a red-flag law, as well.
It’s that provision (among others) that has led gun rights activists to argue that, at the least, Scott needs to answer for before he is elected to succeed Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader.
“Does he still support a national ‘Red Flag’ law?” asks the American Firearms Association on X.
“Does he support waiting periods on our 2A rights? Does he support raising the age to buy long guns to 21? Does he support abolishing the ATF? Does he support repealing the NFA? Does he support overturning FIX NICS and Joe Biden’s 2022 gun control package? These are questions (and many more) that he must answer based on his history of supporting gun control as Governor of Florida.”
The NFA is the National Firearms Act of 1934, a federal law that taxes the manufacturing and sale of certain guns and requires owners to register those guns. “FIX NICS” is a bill signed into law by then President Trump in 2018 that was intended to strengthen the reporting of prohibited purchasers, including domestic abusers, by state and federal agencies into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
‘Irredeemable squish’
Gun rights groups have also criticized Idaho Sen. John Thune and Texas’ John Cornyn for their stances on guns, as well, but it’s Scott, now the pick for GOP majority leader by MAGA supporters like Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, who is feeling the heat.
“In 2018, he signed a bill in Florida to raise the age of gun ownership to 21,” writes the National Review’s Charles Cooke. “In response, the NRA refused to endorse him in his Senate run, and sued to stop the law from going into effect. In 2019, Scott came out in favor of ‘red-flag laws.’ Why is that different? Why doesn’t that make Scott an irredeemable squish?”
Conservative talk-show host Dana Loesch, a former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, adds Scott’s perceived failures as head of the National Republican Senate Committee in 2022 to her bill of particulars about why he should not become the next GOP Senate leader.
“Rick Scott cost Republicans the Senate in 2022 at NRSC, steamrolled over 2, 4, & 5A rights as governor, backs amnesty, but sure, put him in charge of Trump’s agenda in the Senate, that s [sic] great F-You to voters,” she wrote on X on Monday.
‘Middle-of-the-road gun grabbers’
Luis Valdes, Florida state director of Gun Owners of America, says all three candidates are bad choices for those who care about gun rights.
“We the people have voted, and we’ve sent a clear mandate to Washington, D.C., that we don’t want political party hacks,” Valdes told Loesch on her podcast on Monday. “We don’t want middle-of-the-road gun grabbers. We want Second Amendment patriots.”
Valdes said that “sadly” it appears one of the three mentioned candidates will win the position.
“What we can do is we can put pressure and make sure that they will not get our support unless they turn the page, they turn the cheek, and they tell us and they show us through action — because actions speak louder than words — that they are better than what they were before.”
Scott has the backing of at least five senators who have endorsed him in recent days. Up until this weekend, he had been considered a dark horse candidate behind Thune and Cornyn, notwithstanding his personal relationship with Trump. The president-elect has not endorsed any candidate for the position as of Tuesday morning.
The Phoenix reached out to Sen. Scott’s office for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.