Friends recount tragedy as shocking statistics about Florida gun ownership emerge
STUDENTS in room 1214 were learning about the Holocaust when their lives were changed in an instant.
IT WAS the final lesson of the day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and Jonathan Blank was in history class, learning about the Holocaust.
Across the school grounds, five of his best friends sat in different classrooms watching the clock. In 19 minutes, school would be out and they had plans to hang out and play a little basketball on Valentine’s Day.
Inside classroom 1214, the clock hit 2:21pm. Then: POP! POP! POP!
Instinctively, 16-year-old Jonathan hit the ground, taking cover under his desk. He smelled the chemical stench of gunpowder, noticed sawdust particles floating in the air: pieces of the classroom door that had been splintered by shots. Around the room, his schoolmates covered themselves with textbooks and took shelter behind filing cabinets.
One girl’s face was covered in blood. Nearby, a boy wasn’t moving. It struck Jonathan that he was probably dead.
Beyond the pockmarked door, gunfire sounded up and down the hallway, seesawing eerily between shots, then silence, shots, then silence. All that broke through the moments of quiet were horrifying shrieks — along with the groans of Jonathan’s wounded classmates.
The teen thought about texting his parents and best friends, but he’d left his phone atop his desk and was too frozen to reach up and grab it.
He didn’t know it yet, but the room was where 12 of the 17 victims would eventually be found.
Elsewhere, his group of mostly Jewish mates, who referred to themselves as the “Jew Crew”, heard the alarm and left their class before hearing the screams: “It’s a Code Red!” Translation: Shooting on campus.
Each ran for their lives as heavily armed police ran into the school. Reunited outside, they heard rumours about room 1214 and realised their friend was inside. While Jonathan was one of the lucky ones, he was forced to walk passed his fallen classmates and told himself not to look.
Later reunited at one of their family homes, the group talked about how they don’t know what to do in the wake of the tragedy.
“When we’re older and someone asks us where we went to high school and we say Marjory Stoneman Douglas they’re going to say: ‘Hey, that’s where the mass shooting was,”’ friend Noah said. “They’ll put us in the same category as Columbine or Sandy Hook. It doesn’t feel real, honestly.”
“We’ve created a bond you can’t break,” Jonathan said. “Going through a situation like this has brought us even closer together.”
THE ‘GUNSHINE STATE’
The devastating event has sparked shock and anger in the Sunshine State, renowned for its warm climate and laid-back feel.
But behind its sun-soaked climate, Florida is ironically branded the “gunshine state” due to the ease with which firearms can be obtained.
The state, home to 21 million people, has handed out more gun permits than any other state — around 1.9 million as of January, official statistics show.
However, comparing the number of firearm permits with the number of inhabitants puts Florida at mid-range for gun ownership — trailing a number of mostly-white rural states.
The number of permits, though, only makes up part of the total number of firearms, an unknown figure that’s difficult to estimate.
The peninsula, located in the southeast of the country, has been the setting of several particularly deadly shootings in recent years.
The worst remains an attack on an Orlando gay nightclub on June 12, 2016, which saw a heavily armed man — who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group — kill 49 people.
Six months later, a man opened fire at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, killing five people on January 6, 2017.
On Valentine’s Day, Nikolas Cruz allegedly stormed his former high school and opened fire on students and teachers with an AR-15 rifle that he had bought legally.
Police said Mr Cruz, who is being held on 17 counts of murder, has confessed to being the gunman in one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
According to Broward County Sheriff’s Office report, Nikolas Cruz told interrogating officers that he “began shooting students that he saw in the hallways and on school grounds”.
RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
Despite the repeated tragedies, Floridians make no secret of their attachment to the right to bear arms.
Florida was the first US state to adopt controversial “Stand Your Ground” legislation in 2005, backed by the gun lobby.
The law allows a person to use lethal force if they believe they are in serious danger — even if there is a possibility that they could escape or retreat from that threat.
As a result, the concept of self defence is particularly prominent in Florida, as illustrated in February 2012 with the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager killed by a neighbourhood watchman.
The perpetrator, George Zimmerman, pleaded self defence and was acquitted by a jury.
DEADLY SCOURGE
Lowy Institute Professor James Curran described the gun issue as a “sick scourge at the heart of American life”.
The University of Sydney history professor told news.com.au a lack of political will to change the laws meant massacres, such as the one which took place on Wednesday, would continue to happen.
Prof Curran said the NRA remained a very powerful force especially across the country’s southern states. He warned nothing would change in part because of the determination of Americans to hang on to the words written in the constitution that entitled them to bear arms.
“If Obama wasn’t able to bring about change following the massacre of 20 kids at Sandy Hook then what hope is there?” he said.
“This problem is endemic. It’s in the constitution and the gun lobby cling onto this holy writ in their constitution.
“And unless politicians are willing to change this we will unfortunately see more of the tragedies which we saw yesterday.”
Prof Curran said it was clear mental health also played a part in yesterday’s tragedy and the accused shooter had a troubled background, but this wasn’t the only contributing factor. He also said both sides of the gun debate have an argument to make.
“One side argues for increasing regulations and background checks in states where there aren’t the regulations and the other side says it’s a mental health issue,” he said.
VALENTINE’S TWEET
The National Rifle Association (NRA) was promoting a Valentine’s Day-themed tweet that urged people to buy guns for their loved ones as the massacre unfolded, it has emerged.
“Give your significant other something they’ll appreciate this Valentine’s Day,” read the tweet by Yonkers-based Kimber Firearms with a photo of two guns set on a heart-shaped box.
The picture of the guns originated from the Instagram account of Jim’s Firearms of Pensacola, Florida, according to Business Insider.
The NRA’s retweet was live at 3.49pm local time on Wednesday — almost an hour after the Broward County Sheriff’s Office tweeted about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, according to the internet archiving site the Wayback Machine.
By 7pm, the retweet had been deleted and NRA told the New York Post that its retweet only disappeared because Kimber pulled its tweet.
DEADLY DEBATE
The accused Florida shooter was armed with his own AR-15 rifle, the same type of weapon used in Las Vegas and Texas last year, as well as in earlier shootings at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida and a school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Following the Las Vegas massacre in October, politicians on both sides of the political divide took the rare step towards tightening the nation’s gun laws. But four months after 58 people died in the tragedy, the only gun legislation that has moved in the House or Senate instead eases restrictions for gun owners.
Politicians also pushed to ban bump stocks, the device that allowed the shooter’s semi- automatic rifles to mimic the rapid fire of machineguns. However those efforts soon fizzled amid opposition from Republican leaders.
Instead, the GOP-controlled House approved a bill in December making it easier for gun owners to legally carry concealed weapons across state lines.
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