Broward Schools Superintendent: 'Now Is the Time' to Pass Gun Laws

In a heartfelt speech Thursday evening during a vigil for the victims of yesterday’s fatal shooting at South Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Robert Runcie, the superintendent of the school’s district, called on lawmakers and public officials to pass “common sense gun laws.”

“Those lives should not be lost in vain. Those lives are telling us that now is the time for us to do something different,” Runcie said, per a partial transcript of his comments published by The Hill. “Our children are writing to us. They’re telling us, school board members, community, elected officials, now is the time for us to enact some common sense gun laws in this country.”

The comments strongly echo those of Stoneman Douglas’s students, many of whom have told national news organizations they’re horrified that Florida lawmakers have not—and will not—consider even basic preventative measures against gun violence.

“We need to dig out of this hole,” David Hogg, a Stoneman Douglas student who survived the shooting, told CNN on Wednesday. “We need to step out of it and take a look back and realize there’s something seriously wrong here. Some of our policymakers…need to look in the mirror and take some action. Because ideas are great, but without action, ideas stay ideas, and children die.”

Florida Governor Rick Scott, who has received an A+ from the National Rifle Association and proudly advertised that he’s signed “more pro-gun bills into law, in one term, than any other Governor in Florida history,” told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in one breath on Thursday that “everything’s on the table,” a vague allusion to gun control laws, and that “the Second Amendment didn’t kill anybody” in another.

“Let’s remember, the Second Amendment has been around for over 200 years. It didn’t, it didn’t, you know, that’s not what killed innocent people,” Scott said.