At his final public event before he is expected to announce his presidential bid, Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday hinted at events to come: “In just three days in Miami I will announce whether I will run for president, for re-election in the Senate or commissioner of the National Football League,” Rubio said, to laughs.
But the audience, at a National Rifle Association forum, was not necessarily a natural fit for the prologue to Rubio’s presidential campaign launch. Although Rubio now boasts an “A” rating from the NRA, the Florida senator’s record on gun laws is inconsistent at best.
Some of Rubio’s record is what the NRA would consider sterling. For example, as a state lawmaker he co-sponsored the “stand your ground” law in Florida that was at issue in the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.
More recently, Rubio has proposed rolling back laws that prohibit gun possession in Washington, D.C., which is under the jurisdiction of Congress.
However, Rubio hinted after the Sandy Hook school shooting that he might be open to stricter gun laws for convicted felons or the mentally ill, an idea that fizzled in Congress but sparked an uproar among gun-rights advocates.
Rubio had “always been open to measures that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill,” his spokesman Alex Conant explained at the time.
Indeed, when Rubio was running for the Republican nomination for Senate in Florida against Charlie Crist, Rubio said he supported “reasonable restrictions” on guns, the Miami Herald reported, including background checks and waiting periods.
And, as speaker of the Florida House, Rubio’s relationship with the NRA became strained, as when he did not strongly support a measure to allow employees to bring guns to work.
“He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,” NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer told the Tampa Bay Times during Rubio’s Senate bid. “He talked the talk, but he didn’t walk the walk.”
In his NRA speech Friday, Rubio made the requisite nods to gun advocates, vouching his opposition to gun-free zones, for example.
“The sins of the evil do not justify the restrictions of law-abiding citizens,” Rubio said. “In fact, the sins of the evil make those rights more critical.”
But Rubio also focused most of his speech not on gun laws but on foreign policy and national security, which will likely be themes central to his presidential campaign. The issue of Rubio’s record on guns will no doubt be raised during a campaign — but, at least for now, his spokesman did not comment.
