In the News
Marco Rubio Gets Called Out For Putting NRA Donors Ahead Of Keeping Floridians Safe From Gun Violence
Marco Rubio’s cowardly refusal to support common sense legislation to help prevent gun violence in the wake of recent mass shootings is far from the first time he’s put the gun lobby ahead of keeping Florida communities safe.
After the Newtown shooting in 2012, he publicly announced he’d oppose gun safety legislation and joined other Republicans in threatening to filibuster new gun laws. In the aftermath of shootings at Pulse Nightclub and in San Bernardino, Rubio voted against measures to expand background checks. And just last week, he voted against a bill to crack down on domestic terrorism in the wake of the Buffalo shooting.
As Rubio doubles down on his refusal to support gun safety legislation after recent mass shootings, Floridians are slamming him for siding with the NRA instead of taking action. See below for highlights from recent columns calling out Rubio’s cowardice:
South Florida Sun Sentinel: Five things you can do to help save America
- Start with Sen. Marco Rubio, who slavishly earned his A-plus rating from the NRA and has received $3.3 million of NRA campaign money, according to The New York Times. This career politician wants another six years in Washington but has an impressive opponent in U.S. Rep. Val Demings, who supports the gun reforms Rubio opposes.
- Rubio had the gall to trash the Miami Heat on Twitter after the NBA team urged its cheering fans Thursday to contact senators and demand “common sense gun laws” and “make change at the ballot box.” That sounds good to us. To the Heat, and Heat fans: We’re proud of you. To paraphrase Trump, Marco never looked so little.
Palm Beach Post: Another misfire: Florida’s Rubio takes aim at COVID-19 vaccinations, not AR-15s
- When hunted down this week by a CNN reporter, a cornered Rubio dismissed the idea of supporting legislation to ban the sale of AR-15-style weapons.
- “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes. Whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it,” Rubio said.
- The truth of the matter is that Rubio has received more than $3 million in donations from the National Rifle Association, which probably explains his “nothing we can do” attitude more than anything else.
Tallahassee Democrat: Op-ed: ‘Sick and tired’ of our country’s inability to control gun violence
- We cannot control what happens in other states, but voters can control what happens here in Florida. The media and Floridians in this midterm election season must force Sen. Marco Rubio to answer some hard questions.
- Why has he refused, since the Newtown Connecticut and Parkland Florida school shootings, to demand and pass gun safety laws in the Senate? Make him explain, as he seeks another six-year term as a U.S. Senator, why he votes against the right to life for children gunned down in schools while voting to hold women and young girls hostage to giving birth to their rapist’s baby.
- Make Marco Rubio answer for the way he has conspired through his refusal to act to stop the deaths of these victims of gun violence.
Florida Politics: Winners and Losers of the Week in Florida politics
- It’s disingenuous for Rubio, a favorite of the National Rifle Association (NRA), to criticize anyone for politicizing the Texas tragedy. No one plays the political game better than the NRA, which stuffs Rubio’s coffers with cash.
- Rubio loves to denounce totalitarian regimes in China and Cuba, where the government crushes dissent. But he’s saying that the Heat should just shut up and dribble, as Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham famously said when LeBron James expressed a political opinion.
- Athletes and teams have as much right to use their platforms for social justice as Rubio has to push his agenda. It’s called freedom.
###