Florida Gov. Rick Scott says “everything’s on the table” when considering tightening gun control laws in the state following the school shooting that took the lives of 17 people on Wednesday.
“Everything’s on the table. I’m going to look at every way that we can make sure our kids are safe,” Scott told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday when asked if he was ready to commit to working on tightening gun restrictions in the state.
“We cannot let this pass without making something happen that hopefully, and it’s my goal that this will never happen again in my state,” Scott later said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
Scott’s message on Thursday goes farther than the Republican governor’s past rhetoric on gun control.
Following a 2016 shooting in an Orlando nightclub, Scott said that nobody on a terrorist watch list should have a gun, but “the Second Amendment didn’t kill anybody.”
“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 in 2016. “Evil killed innocent people. There’s gonna be a time to have a conversation about what we do to make our state or city, our country, safer again. But let’s have a conversation about how we destroy ISIS. Where’s that conversation?”
At least 17 people died and 14 others were hospitalized on Wednesday when a former student opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, appeared in court Thursday, where he was denied bond.
Scott is considered a possible candidate to run against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the upcoming midterm elections.