Welcome to

Republican state leaders have made it clear that calling a special legislative session for gun laws isn’t on their list of priorities. As Matt Galka tells us, that hasn’t stopped Democrats from trying.

Florida Democrat staff dropped off 46 petitions at the Secretary of State’s office Tuesday morning. The letters called for a survey of all 160 members of the state legislature to see if there are enough “yes” votes for a special session on gun control.

“There were over 244 attempts by suspected to purchase firearms in the United States in 2015 alone, and 91% of that time, they were successful,” said Orlando Sen. Darren Soto.

They aim at crafting legislation that would prevent suspected terrorists from legally buying firearms.

Outside of the Capitol a memorial to all of the 49 victims of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, Florida Democrats say these names should be enough of a reason to call a special session.

It’s a long shot with many Republican leaders already expressing a special session isn’t in the cards.  The National Rifle Association calls the move a stunt.

“The background check system, firearms, it’s foreign to them, so to rush to judgement to try and call a special session, to do something about guns when they oughta be looking at terrorists, it’s really kind of sad,” said lobbyist Marion Hammer.

Democrats would need 3/5ths of both the state House and Senate to say yes to a special session in order to trigger one.

The Department of State received the required number of petitions from the Democrats to start the poll. They will have seven days to survey the legislature.