PTA dad fights Republican lawmaker who wants schools flooded with guns

A Republican lawmaker who has voted repeatedly to allow more guns in schools is being challenged by a PTA dad who wants to actually do something to promote gun safety in Florida.

State Rep. Manny Diaz has spent years using his power in the Florida House to be an ally of the NRA. He has voted several times to make it easier to carry guns on high school and college campuses. He voted, for example, to authorize “school safety designees” to carry concealed firearms on K-12 campuses.

He also voted to allow students and faculty to openly carry firearms on state college campuses.

Those votes are why Diaz has received an “A” rating from the NRA.

Diaz’s district, the 103rd, is within 40 miles of the site of the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and staffers were killed with an AR-15 assault rifle in that incident in February.

Even then, Diaz was a key vote in killing a proposed ban on assault weapons just one week after the tragic massacre.

Diaz is running for an open seat in the state Senate, where he would undoubtedly continue to vote against public safety on guns.

His opponent is Democratic nominee David Perez, a firefighter who leads the PTA at his local elementary school.

On his official website, Perez has been unambiguous about his stance on the NRA and notes he “will stand up to the NRA and fight for common sense gun safety measures.”

Perez expresses his support for “universal background checks, a ban on military-style assault rifles, and closing the gun show loophole.”

The NRA clearly wants Diaz in the state Senate, where he would have even more power to push guns on school grounds, just as he has reliably been doing in the House. The safety concerns of students and their parents just don’t seem to matter.