U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) took to the U.S. Senate floor on Tuesday to outline steps that he’s taken or supported to curb gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead on Feb. 14.
Rubio co-sponsored the NICS Denial Notification Act to notify states when individuals who are not legally allowed to possess firearms “lie and try” to buy one, and the Students, Teachers and Officers Prevention (STOP) School Violence Act to ramp up federal support to detect, prevent and intervene in school violence.
“We have to find a way not just to live together but to thrive as a nation,” Rubio said. “We have to find a way to keep our children safe. If we keep that in mind, I am sure that we can work together to create real, enduring consensus on solutions, on things we agree on to stop this from happening again and we can have respectful debates and productive debates on the issues upon which our nation and this body are still divided.”
Rubio said that finding a solution to gun violence “isn’t about coming up with the best idea,” but that it’s about “coming up with the best idea that you can come up with that actually has a chance of being implemented into law.”
“And what that means in order to get something done is you need 60 votes in the Senate on virtually any issue,” Rubio continued. “You need a majority of the votes in the House, and you need a White House that’s willing to sign it. If those three things don’t happen, you do not have a law. So what we spent time trying to do is identify what can we get 60 votes for in the Senate, can pass in the House, and be signed by the president that will make a difference? That’s been our criteria.”
Rubio has also called on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to revise an Obama administration-era directive that could restrict the ability of school districts to report student threats to authorities.
“(On Monday) I wrote to the Department of Education and the Department of Justice and I asked them to immediately revise this directive from 2014 and any associated guidance to make sure that schools are appropriately reporting violence and dangerous actions to local law enforcement,” Rubio said. “In addition to asking them to do that proactively, I will also be introducing legislation to make sure the federal government does not fail our children in this way.”