{"id":148,"date":"2018-02-23T18:56:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T23:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=148"},"modified":"2018-03-01T13:46:40","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T18:46:40","slug":"the-latest-nra-lobbyist-takes-issue-with-florida-gun-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=148","title":{"rendered":"The Latest: NRA Lobbyist Takes Issue With Florida Gun Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0THE ASSOCIATED PRESS\u00a0<\/span><\/span>

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Mourners attend the funeral service for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School assistant football coach, Aaron Feis. at the Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, Fla., Thursday, Feb. 22. 2018. Football players wearing Stoneman Douglas jerseys carried Feis’ casket into the service at the church where family and friends gathered to remember him as loyal and caring.\u00a0<\/span>South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP<\/span>\u00a0Mike Stocker<\/span><\/p>\n

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 The Latest on the deadly Florida school shooting (all times local):<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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The National Rifle Association’s longtime Florida lobbyist has sent an email alert criticizing gun safety proposals introduced by the governor and lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Former NRA President Marion P. Hammer sent the email titled “Don’t Let Them Blame You For Parkland” on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Gov. Rick Scott and legislators announced their plans to make schools safer in response to a mass shooting that left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland last week.<\/p>\n

Hammer says the proposed three-day waiting period to buy a gun would not have stopped the Parkland shooter, a ban on bump stocks is irrelevant and raising the minimum age to buy a gun to 21 would be unfair.<\/p>\n

She also mentions several proposals the NRA could support, such as “hardening our schools,” putting officers in schools and training volunteer teachers to use guns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Fashion house Gucci is the latest donor to give $500,000 to students organizing marches against gun violence.<\/p>\n

Public relations assistant Veronica Mineo confirmed in an email Friday that Gucci will be donating the money to the “March for Our Lives” movement. The donation was first reported in WWD.<\/p>\n

Students are mobilizing a March 24 march in Washington to urge lawmakers to enact tougher gun control in response to a shooting that left 17 dead last week at a Florida high school.<\/p>\n

Actor George Clooney and wife Amal, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, director Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Animation founder Jeffrey Katzenberg have all pledged $500,000 donations to the activists.<\/p>\n

5:40 p.m.<\/p>\n

A Republican lawmaker from Florida and a longtime member of the National Rifle Association says he now supports an assault weapon ban.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and lost both legs when a roadside bomb detonated. He is serving his first term in the House.<\/p>\n

Writing in The New York Times, Mast says he didn’t worry about becoming a casualty in Afghanistan and he’s not worried about becoming a “political casualty” now.<\/p>\n

He says he supports defining what constitutes an assault firearm and not allowing them for future purchase, just as is with fully automatic weapons.<\/p>\n

Mast is breaking from the vast majority of GOP lawmakers in the wake of last week’s school shooting that left 17 people dead.<\/p>\n

5:20 p.m.<\/p>\n

A woman close to the teen charged with killing 17 people at a Florida high school warned the FBI he had rifles and said, “I know he is going to explode.”<\/p>\n

That’s according to a transcript of the Jan. 5 tip to the FBI’s call center, which was obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The FBI has acknowledged it failed to investigate the tip about 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz. But the transcript, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, provides new details.<\/p>\n

The woman described Cruz’s short temper and said he had the “mental capacity of a 12 to 14 year old.”<\/p>\n

She said Cruz posted pictures of weapons on social media, writing, “I want to kill people.”<\/p>\n

The woman told the FBI, “I do believe something’s going to happen.”<\/p>\n

3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was critically wounded by a gunman last year at a congressional baseball practice, says he is “irate” that a sheriff’s deputy did not try to stop the shooter at a Florida high school last week.<\/p>\n

The Louisiana Republican says he was “blessed” that two U.S. Capitol police officers engaged the shooter at the baseball practice, saving Scalise and other members of Congress.<\/p>\n

Scalise told Fox Business Network that in Florida, “you had an armed deputy hiding out instead of stopping the shooter. The FBI had this kid’s name months ago … and let him slip through the cracks. It makes you irate.”<\/p>\n

Scalise said there’s “no magic bill” that will prevent the next incident when laws “already on the books weren’t being enforced.”<\/p>\n

2:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Major League Baseball is honoring victims of the Florida school shooting by wearing caps with the school’s initials.<\/p>\n

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School baseball coach Todd Fitz-Gerald and his sons were guests of the Houston Astros for their spring opener against the Washington Nationals on Friday. The coach said that getting a moment to stop thinking about the Valentine’s Day tragedy that left 17 people dead by getting back to the sport he loves was a relief.<\/p>\n

The rest of the Stoneman Douglas baseball team and the school’s softball team spent time with the Miami Marlins before their game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Marlins players and staff wore maroon shirts that read “MSD STRONG” before the game, and chief executive officer and part owner Derek Jeter mingled with the teams and even posed for selfies with some players.<\/p>\n

Many teams will have players sign the caps and they will be auctioned to benefit the victims and families affected by the shooting.<\/p>\n

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1:15 p.m.<\/p>\n

The Florida legislature’s gun safety proposal would allow trained teachers to be armed, a key difference from the governor’s plan.<\/p>\n

State Senate President Joe Negron says a joint proposal by the state legislature will take concrete steps to make schools safer in response to a mass shooting that left 17 people dead at a high school last week.<\/p>\n

Negron made the comments Friday afternoon, after Gov. Rick Scott announced his gun safety plan.<\/p>\n

The legislature’s proposal is similar to Scott’s, including requiring people to be at least 21 to gun a buy and banning the sale of bump stocks. The plan also increases funding for mental health issues involving students and young adults.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Richard Corcoran said the legislature’s proposal also would allow a teacher who has completed the training required to be a law enforcement officer to carry a gun in school. He called that aspect of the plan a “game changer.”<\/p>\n