Carlos Curbelo: Republican leaders need to bring gun legislation to the floor of Congress for debate

“What we need is congressional leaders, specifically in my party, to allow some of these bills to come to the floor for debate,” Curbelo said on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to proposed legislation that expands background checks for purchasing guns, prevents people on the “No Fly” list from having instant access to weapons, and bans “bump stocks” that allow semi-automatic firearms to mimic automatic ones.

“There are a lot of Republicans who are prepared to support reasonable commonsense gun safety laws, new laws, stronger laws, that protect rights for responsible citizens, people who are responsible gun owners, but will prevent those who want to do harm to innocent people from obtaining these weapons,” Curbelo continued.

Curbelo added investigations were needed to discover why the FBI missed “many” warning signs regarding Nikolas Cruz, 19, who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14 with an AR-style rifle.

Cruz has been charged with multiple counts of premeditated murder.

Curbelo, a Florida Republican who represents the congressional district south of Parkland, applauded the student survivors for their political activism in the wake of the tragedy.

“We’ve kind of inherited this world of binary choices where we either have to repeal the Second Amendment or have no gun safety regulations whatsoever, and younger generations of Americans don’t see the world that way,” he said. “And I want to represent those people and I want to get something done.”