I saw Parkland students help pass Florida gun reform. Now it’s all at risk | Opinion

It was Feb. 20, 2018, when I boarded a bus headed from Parkland to the Capitol in Tallahassee.

The bus was full of teenagers, including me, with a few adults also acting as chaperons. It was a week after 17 students and administrators had been shot and murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine’s Day.

Outraged by the gun violence that nearly destroyed their beloved high school, the South Florida teens wanted change. They wanted Florida lawmakers, then in session, to pass some legislation to at least limit assault weapons.

On the way, I began chatting with some of the students and they learned I had worked in public relations. A sophomore that I’d later learn was from Parkland asked, “Oh, so you write speeches for a living?” I replied, “Yeah, something like that.”

Hours later, these students packed a Florida Senate committee room. They were about to be given a crash course in decorum and procedures because Tallahassee loves decorum and procedures.

Speaker cards were filled out as they were instructed. Behind me was the young man from the bus. He passed me his cell phone, hands shaking, and kindly asked me to read his speech. He wanted to make sure he focused on his classmates and not on himself. The words described what it was like to watch his classmate shot.

A few more phones were handed to me. I made no corrections to their speeches. All I could muster the strength to say through the tears was, “It’s perfect.”

The meeting began, and hundreds of speaker cards were turned in. The committee chair read the amendment number out loud, and only one speaker was acknowledged.

Unbeknownst to the crowd, it was Marion Hammer, the renowned Florida spokeswoman with the NRA. She walked up and simply said, “We are down on this amendment.”

When the Parkland students booed, the committee chair used her gavel and reprimanded the students. These students, who had witnessed the deadliest mass school shooting at that time, were being lectured. The entire room was in an uproar, and after 30 minutes of protest, the students were eventually allowed to speak, but only for two minutes each.

On March 9, 2018, the “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act” was signed into law. Two of its central provisions were raising the purchasing age of a firearm from 18 to 21 and enacting “red flag laws,” granting law enforcement the ability to remove a firearm from the presence of someone posing a risk to themselves or others.

This bill was lauded as a bi-partisan win, a step in the right direction, action in the face of decades of inaction in gun control. It has been said that no side of the aisle was happy with the bill. Some thought it went too far, some that it didn’t go far enough. Republicans bragged about this bill though, their bill.

Now, the law championed by Parkland kids on a bus, the Republican majority and signed by the Republican governor in 2018, Rick Scott, is on the verge of being overturned by the Republican majority in 2025, spearheaded by another Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

I had signed up as a chaperone and had no intention of speaking that day in the committee meeting. I was there to support these kids, because that’s what they were, kids — fearless, resilient and brave nevertheless. I chose to do my part that day. I filled out a speaker card. I spoke for two minutes.

A few hours later, as we were on our way back home on the bus, several students, including the sophomore whose face I’ll never forget, pleaded with me to run for public office. I did, and exactly one year later, I debated new provisions to that bill as a state representative for District 103.

That bus ride with those Parkland student survivors changed my life in so many ways. But nothing was more impactful than being asked to proofread those students’ speeches. They wrote those speeches so someone, anyone, would listen.

Once again, albeit seven years later, these students’ voices are being dismissed and the Parkland 17 are being forgotten.

Who will be the adult in the room this time to put a stop to it?

Cindy Polo is a mother and former state representative for District 103.